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“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.”

(William Shakespeare)

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The Tragedy of Hamlet: Extracted from Act I, Scene iii

William Shakespeare

LAERTES.
Be wary then; best safety lies in fear:
Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.

OPHELIA.
I shall th’ effect of this good lesson keep
As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
Whilst, like a puff’d and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads
And recks not his own read.

LAERTES.
O, fear me not.
I stay too long:--but here my father comes.

[Enter Polonius.]

A double blessing is a double grace;
Occasion smiles upon a second leave.

POLONIUS.
Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay’d for. There,--my blessing with thee!

[Laying his hand on Laertes’ head.]

And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion’d thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch’d, unfledg’d comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in,
Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are most select and generous chief in that.
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.
Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!

LAERTES.
Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.

POLONIUS.
The time invites you; go, your servants tend.

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