Quote 16
HAMLET
Not a whit, we defy augury. There is a
special providence in the fall of a sparrow. 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. Since no man of aught he leaves
knows, what is 't to leave betimes? Let be.
(5.2.233-238)
Okay, this is convoluted enough to be something about "known unknowns" and "known knowns," but it's actually a deeply philosophical acceptance of fate: whatever happens is going to happen when it happens—if not now, then later. Maybe this is why Hamlet has delayed so long.
Quote 17
O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!
(1.2.133-136)
Tricky. Hamlet wants to die, but "self-slaughter" is a sin. Cue a major religious and moral dilemma that will haunt him (and us) throughout the play.
Quote 18
HAMLET
Fie on 't! ah fie! 'Tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this:
But two months dead—nay, not so much, not two.
So excellent a king, that was, to this
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly.
(1.2.139-146)
Hamlet insists that Gertrude's hasty marriage to Claudius (after Old Hamlet's death) has turned the world into an "unweeded garden." So, was Denmark some kind of idyllic Eden when his father was alive? If you consider that Hamlet never had to think about his mom having sex before she remarried—then, to him, it probably was.