Hamlet (1990)

Mel Gibson: Hamlet

Photos 

Quotes 

• [last lines] 

  Hamlet : The rest is silence.

  Horatio : Good night, sweet prince. And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

• [Hamlet descends the stairs to the sepulcher, to visit his father's tomb. His eyes are red with grief. He looks around warily, as though wondering if the Ghost might appear. He's depressed on many accounts: he's just frightened Ophelia, whom he loves; he himself is frightened by the Ghost's command to kill his uncle; he's been playing a madman all this time in order to kill his uncle, and he is afraid to continue to do any of these things] 

  Hamlet : To be, or not to be, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep no more...

  [He gazes at the skeletons residing in niches of the sepulcher] 

  Hamlet : ...and by a sleep to say...

  [He finally comes to his father's tomb] 

  Hamlet : ...we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to!

  [Hamlet rests his fists upon his father's tomb, closes his eyes, and shapes his hands into prayer position] 

  Hamlet : 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished! To die, to sleep. To sleep -

  [in alarm at the idea, he stands and paces] 

  Hamlet : - perchance to dream! Aye, there's the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause. There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life.

  [He lays his head upon his father's tomb] 

  Hamlet : [viciously]  For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, the pangs of despised love, the law's delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes, when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin?

  [He stares at the ground, near to weeping] 

  Hamlet : Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns, puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of?

  [He looks at the ceiling, or to Heaven] 

  Hamlet : Thus conscience does make cowards of us all...

• Polonius : What do you read, my lord?

  Hamlet : [looks down at his book]  Words...

  [looks at the cover of the book] 

  Hamlet : words...

  [looks up at Polonius] 

  Hamlet : Words.

• Hamlet : The play's the thing, wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

• Hamlet : Frailty, thy name is woman.

• Hamlet : [to Ophelia]  Get thee to a nunnery!

• Hamlet : O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!

• Polonius : Ophelia, walk you here.

  [to Claudius] 

  Polonius : Gracious, so please you, we will bestow ourselves.

  [to Ophelia, handing her a book of prayers] 

  Polonius : Read on this book. He is coming. Let us withdraw, my lord.

  [Hamlet sees Polonius and Claudius sneaking away to hide and eavesdrop. Ophelia looks up and sees him approaching the staircase down to her; she obediently starts walking back and forth, pretending to study the prayers. Hamlet has a pretty good idea what is going on] 

  Hamlet : Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered.

  Ophelia : Good my lord, how does your honor for this many a day?

  Hamlet : I humbly thank you, well.

  [He starts to walk away and she hurries after him] 

  Ophelia : My lord, I have remembrances of yours that I have longèd long to redeliver. I pray you now receive them.

  Hamlet : No, not I. I never gave you aught.

  Ophelia : My honored lord, you know right well you did, and with them, words of so sweet breath composed as made the things more rich. Their perfume lost, take these again. There, my lord.

  [He takes the necklaces, staring at her, then begins to chuckle] 

  Hamlet : Ha, ha! Are you honest?

  Ophelia : My lord?

  Hamlet : Are you fair?

  Ophelia : What means your lordship?

  Hamlet : That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.

  Ophelia : [spiritedly]  Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?

  Hamlet : I did love you once.

  Ophelia : Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

  Hamlet : [Pretending contempt]  You should not have believed me. I loved you not! Where's your father?

  [Hiding behind a pillar, watching, Claudius and Polonius jump in fear. Horrified to lie to him, Ophelia gives us the first wild-eyed look of fright that will accompany her when she goes mad] 

  Ophelia : At home, my lord.

  Hamlet : [loudly, for the eavesdroppers]  Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but in his own house. If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry. Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Or if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. I have heard of your paintings, well enough. God hath given you one face and you make yourselves another. You jig and amble, and you lisp, you nickname God's creatures and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on 't.

  [He shoves her at the wall and she gasps] 

  Hamlet : It hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriage. Those that are married already, all but one, shall live. The rest shall keep as they are.

  [He throws the necklaces at her] 

• Hamlet : Alas, poor Yorrick, I knew him.

• Hamlet : There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

• Hamlet : Sir, to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.

• Hamlet : Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.

• [furiously using his sword to "write" the following line in the stone battlements of the castle] 

  Hamlet : I set it down, that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain!

• Hamlet : You cannot call it love! At your age the heyday in the blood is tame.