"Hamlet's knowledge and his desire for knowledge set him apart from the world. In it, he cannot be of it. He acts the part of a madman."

"Hamlet is so familiar to us because he knows, really knows, that he is his own worst problem."

"Shakespeare's knowledge of mankind has become proverbial: he has justly been called the master of the human mind."

"In the list as above set down, will be found every positively known fact of Shakespeare’s life, lean and meagre as the invoice is."

"In the chapter on "His Age," Professor Gervinus pours out the results of a profound study of the writings attributed to both men."

"Le génie n’a point pour mission de créer, mais d’éclairer ce qui, sans lui, serait condamné aux ténèbres. C’est l’ordonnateur du Chaos."

"Prometheus is action. Hamlet is hesitation. In Prometheus the obstacle is exterior; in Hamlet it is interior."

"Tout maladif qu'il est, Hamlet exprime un état permanent de l’homme : le malaise de l’âme dans la vie pas assez faite pour elle."

"The Tempest investigates marriage, love, culture. It is symbolic of man’s rational higher instincts versus his animal natural tendencies."

[William Blake - "Clarence's Dream", 1774 (Shakespeare, Richard III, Act 1, Scene 4)]

"Comme Montaigne, Shakespeare, ou du moins Hamlet, reconnaît en lui-même avec inquiétude le tourment propre aux mélancoliques"

"For Hamlet and heroes such as him, loneliness represents fulfilment, even if on another level."

"Hamlet's mind," the critic says, "is constantly occupied with the world within, and abstracted from the world without."