Cassandra 's Key Ideas from Hamlet
by William Shakespeare

Neither a borrower nor a lender be, for loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry

This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man

That one may smile and smile and be a villain

Hic et ubique

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy

Brevity is the soul of wit

Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable; in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me, no, nor women neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so

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

Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words and fall a-cursing like a very drab, a stallion!

How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience

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—to sleep, perchance to dream. At, 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. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, th’ 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 th’ unworthy takes, when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pitch and moment with this regard their currents turn awry and lose the name of action

Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind

God hath given you one face, and you make yourself another

Madness in great ones must not unwatched go

The lady doth protest too much, methinks