Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.

The line is spoken by the elderly counselor Polonius in Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet. It occurs in Act I, scene 3, as Polonius prepares to send his son Laertes off to France. In a sequence of paternal “precepts,” Polonius offers Laertes a set of maxims on conduct—how to speak, spend, choose friends, and manage reputation. The advice is framed as worldly prudence rather than idealistic morality, reflecting Polonius’s role as a court politician concerned with social standing and self-protection in the tense, surveillance-heavy atmosphere of the Danish court.

The aphorism balances generosity with caution: extend goodwill broadly (“Love all”), but reserve confidence for a tested inner circle (“trust a few”), and make ethical restraint the baseline (“do wrong to none”). Read as practical wisdom, it recommends sociability without naïveté and insists that self-interest should not slide into harm. In Hamlet, the line also gains irony: Polonius’s own behavior—spying, manipulation, and instrumental use of others—often violates the spirit of his counsel. The quote thus functions both as a memorable moral guideline and as a subtle critique of courtly hypocrisy.