This is Kat’s tattoo:

It says “Defy Gravity” and is from the play Wicked. I actually just saw the show for the first time recently, but I fell in love with it instantly. The showstopping number “Defying Gravity” was not only a highlight of the play for me, but its message of empowerment really spoke to me. I wanted the tattoo from the moment the show let out, as a reminder to just go for it in life and not let anyone or anything hold me down :)

Wicked (songs and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and book by Winnie Holzman) is based on Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire.

(41 votes, average: 2.41 out of 5)

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This tattoo is on Stacey.

“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.”

- William Shakespeare’s As You Like It(Act II, Scene VII, lines 139-166)

(41 votes, average: 3.73 out of 5)

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“To die, to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to — ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.”

- Excerpt from Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be” soliloquy.

This tattoo was submitted by Ashley:

I took my last exam today, the last test I will have to take to complete my Bachelors Degree. For me, this is huge. I can recall so many times when I wanted to quit. I would thrown down my book and want to scream out of frustration and stress. Giving up would have been so much easier than continuing. But then I would remember what I was working toward, and it would be an injustice to myself if I didn’t finish. And now I have.

Hamlet went through a similar dilemma. He wanted to give up, to kill himself to end the pain and responsibility, to give up on avenging his father’s murder. Out of duty (and partially out of fear) the Danish Prince vows to carry out the task at hand. I am not comparing my situation to that of Hamlet, but I have read this play so many times that I feel for the man. I understand his hesitation, his confusion, his sense of loneliness, and his fear.

…

Hamlet says that by dying we end all of our earthly suffering, which would be a relief. He then wonders what happens after we die, which makes him wearing of suicide.

Although I wanted to quit on multiple occasions, I knew that my life without this accomplishment would be much worse than the hardships I had to endure to reach my goal. And this is the reason that I got my tattoo. It is a reminder of the hard times that made this victory even sweeter. And it also will keep me going when I hit the inevitable rough spots that are to come. Let’s face it, I have an English degree, I’m just asking for stress.

(37 votes, average: 4.27 out of 5)

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This Hamlet tattoo was submitted by Joh.

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.

- Hamlet, Act I, sc. iii

Joh, however, prefers another quote:

I have to say, I love Hamlet, I love Shakespeare in general, and I love the message of the whole speech.

Plus, the excellent Clueless reference cannot be ignored:

Heather: It’s just like Hamlet said, “To thine own self be true.”
Cher: Hamlet didn’t say that.
Heather: I think I remember Hamlet accurately.
Cher: Well, I remember Mel Gibson accurately, and he didn’t say that. That Polonius guy did.

(26 votes, average: 4.23 out of 5)

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This tattoo was submitted by Emily.

Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still,
Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will!
Where shall we dine? O me! What fray was here?
Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.
Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love.
Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate!
O any thing, of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness! serious vanity!
Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire,
sick health!
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
This love feel I, that feel no love in this.
Dost thou not laugh?

- Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Sc I.

(28 votes, average: 4.14 out of 5)

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O, I die, Horatio;
The potent poison quite o’er-crows my spirit:
I cannot live to hear the news from England;
But I do prophesy the election lights
On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice;
So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less,
Which have solicited. The rest is silence.

- Hamlet, act V, scene ii

This tattoo belongs to Nicky:

I got this tattoo to celebrate getting a 2:1 for my English Literature degree – I’ve since been accepted to a post-grad course in Shakespeare studies, so I’m sure it’ll be an intersting talking point there!

(32 votes, average: 4.38 out of 5)

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“The prince of Cumberland! that is a step
On which I must fall down, or else o’erleap,
For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires;
Let not light see me black and deep desires”

- Excerpt from Shakespeare’s Macbeth (I.iv.48-51).

This tattoo was submitted by Hilary.

(34 votes, average: 4.41 out of 5)

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I MET a traveller from an antique land,
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

- Excerpt from Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

This tattoo was submitted by Stella Coombe from Cardiff, Wales, UK.

(19 votes, average: 4.47 out of 5)

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Artwork from Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

(source)

(26 votes, average: 2.92 out of 5)

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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.

- Hamlet, Act I, sc. iii

(source 1) (source 2)

(43 votes, average: 2.26 out of 5)

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