Who Said This?
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Which Act (and Scene)
Quote Analysis (madness)
100

"To be, or not to be, that is the question"

Hamlet

100

"I have found the very cause of Hamlet's lunacy" -Polonius

Madness

100

"This above all: to thine own self be true" -Polonius

Above everything else, always be true to yourself.

100

"The drink, the drink! I am poisoned." -Queen

Act 5 (Scene 2)

100

“I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.” -Hamlet

Basically saying his madness is an act and was used strategically.

200

"O, I am slain!"

Polonius

200

"That one may smile and smile and be a villain."
- Hamlet

Deception

200

"That I am guiltless of your father's death, and am most sensibly in grief for it" -King

I did not kill your father, and I am grieving too.

200

"Alas, poor Yorick!" -Hamlet

Act 5 (Scene 1)

200

“Though this be madness, yet there is method in ’t.” -Polonius 

Polonius noticing hamlets behaviour may be an act and his madness may be on purpose

300

"I am justly killed with mine own treachery"

Laertes

300

"As I perchance hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on" -Hamlet

Madness (saying he's gonna act crazy)

300

"What have I done, that thou dar'st wag thy tongue in noise so rude against me?" -Queen

What have I done for you to be so rude to me?
300

"Go, Captain, from me greet the Danish king. Tell him that by his license Fortinbras craves the conveyance of a promised march over his kingdom" -Fortinbras

Act 4 (Scene 4)

300

“ I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth” - Hamlet 

Hamlet describes his emotional drawback showing signs of actual mental illness/madness

400

"Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark"

Osric

400

"I do not know Why yet I live to say “This thing’s to do,”" - Hamlet

Hesitation 

400

"Give thy thoughts no tongue" -Polonius

Don't say everything you think out loud.

400

"The play’s the thing Where in I’ll catch the conscience of the King." - Hamlet

Act 2 (Scene 2)

400

“Her speech is nothing, yet the unshaped use of it doth move the hearers to collection.” - Gentleman

 Shows the collapse of Ophelia's mental state caused by her father's death and Hamlet's rejection. Unlike Hamlet's "madness," it shows what real madness is like.

500
"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark"

Marcellus

500

"So, lust, though to a radiant angel linked, Will sate itself in a celestial bed And prey on garbage."
- Ghost of King Hamlet

Corruption/Decay


500

"When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions" -Claudius

Problems do not arrive one at a time; they all come at once.

500

"There’s a divinity that shapes our ends." - Hamlet

Act 5 (Scence 2)

500

“It is not madness that I have uttered. Bring me to the test, and I will reword the matter.” - Hamlet

Hamlet tells others to listen to his words more logically, he does this to prove he is still sane and to reinforce the fact that his madness is an act rather than genuine madness.