Polonius Quotes

“If we are true to ourselves, we can not be false to anyone.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one table; that's the end.
CLAUDIUS Alas, alas.
HAMLET A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.
CLAUDIUS What dost thou mean by this?
HAMLET Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.”
― William Shakespeare

“My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us to the king.
HAMLET The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. The king is a thing -
GUILDENSTERN A thing my lord?
HAMLET Of nothing. Bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after!”
― William Shakespeare

“What are you reading?" Polonius asked.
"Words, words, words," said Hamlet.
"And what's the subject?"
"Lesser than the king, but still not nothing."
It took Polonius a moment to realize he had answered another meaning of 'subject.' "I mean what do you read about?"
"All in a line, back and forth." said Hamlet. "I go from left to right with my mind full, and then must drop it there and head back empty-headed to the left side again, and take up another load to carry forward. It's a most tedious job, and when I'm done, there are all the letters where I found them, unchanged despite my having carried them all into my head.”
― Orson Scott Card, The Ghost Quartet

“such wanton, wild, and usual slips/ As are companions noted and most known/ To youth and liberty.”
― William Shakespeare

“More grief to hide than hate to utter love. Polonius, Hamlet.”
― William Shakespeare

“Clement, usually a fluent speaker in any situation, could hear his voice assuming a pompous and affected tone, not unlike that which many actors use (wrongly in Clement's view) when playing Polonius.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Green Knight

“For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour,
Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood,
A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,
The perfume and suppliance of a minute,
No more.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“Then, if he says he loves you,
It fits your wisdom so far to believe it
As he in his particular act and place
May give his saying deed; which is no further
Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal.
Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain
If with too credent ear you list his songs,
Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open
To his master importunity.
Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister.
And keep you in the rear of your affection,
Out of the shot and danger of desire.
The chariest maid is prodigal enough
If she unmask her beauty to the moon.
Virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes.
The canker galls the infants of the spring
Too oft before their buttons be disclosed;
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
Contagious blastments are more imminent.
Be wary then. Best safety lies in fear.
Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou cannot not then be false to any man.
Farewell. My blessing season this in thee!”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“One speech in't I chiefly loved.
T'was Aeneas' tale to Dido; and thereabout of it especially when he speaks of Priam's slaughter.
If it live in your memory, begin at this line”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“give order that these bodies
High on a stage by placed to the view.
And let me speak to the unknowing world
How these things came about. So shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgements, casual slaughters,
Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fallen on th'inventors' heads. All this can I
Truly deliver.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet