Kenneth Branagh Monologues

A little more than kin and less than kind.

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 take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them.

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

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio - a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath bore me on his back a thousand times, and now how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung these lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar?

I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire! Why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is 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?

For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

Frailty, thy name is woman!

But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

O, from this time forth my thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth!

I lov'd Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not with all their quantity of love make up my sum.

The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all.

I think it be thine indeed, for thou liest in't.

Thou dost lie in't to be in't, and say 'tis thine. 'Tis for the dead not for the quick, therefore thou liest.

I would not hear your enemy say so, nor shall you do my ear thine violence to make it truster of your own report against yourself. I know you are no truant.

So gentlemen, with all my love I do commend me to you, and what so poor a man as Hamlet is may do to express his love and friending to you, God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together, and still your fingers on your lips, I pray. The time is out of joint. O cursed spite that ever I was born to set it right.

'Tis now the very witching time of night, when church yards yawn and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world.

If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, absent thee from felicity awhile and in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain to tell my story.

I myself am indifferent honest, yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me.

You cannot call it love! At your age the heyday in the blood is tame!

I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is that not strange?

A miracle. Here's our own hands against our hearts. Come, I will have thee, but by this light I take thee for pity.

O, she misused me past the endurance of a block. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince's jester, and that I was duller than a great thaw, huddling jest upon jest, with such impossible conveyance upon me, that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her, she would infect to the North star. So indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her.

Will your Grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on. I will fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard, do you any embassage to the Pygmies, rather then hold three words conference with this Harpy. You have no employment for me?

When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.

That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks: but that I will hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick, all women shall pardon me. I will live a bachelor.

I would my horse had the speed of your tongue.

He is in love. With who? That is your grace's part. With Hero, Leonato's short daughter.

They say the lady is fair, 'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous, 'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me - by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly; for I will be horribly in love with her.

Shall I speak a word in your ear? You are a villain. I jest not. I will make it good how dare you and when you dare. Do me right, or I will protest your cowardice. You have killed a sweet lady, and her death shall fall heavy on you. Fare you well, boy. You know my mind. My lord, for your many courtesies I thank you. I must discontinue your company. Your brother is fled from Messina. You have among you killed a sweet and innocent lady. For my Lord Lackbeard there, he and I shall meet. Till then peace be with him.