Hamlet's famous soliloquy, in Act III, Scene 1 of Shakespeare's play Hamlet (for full scene, see Hamlet 3:1)
To be, or not to be,--that is the question:--
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to
suffer
The
slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a
sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?--
To die,--to
sleep,--
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The
heartache, 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: there's the respect
That makes
calamity of so
long life;
For who would bear the
whips and scorns of time,
The
oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despis'd
love, the law's delay,
The
insolence of office, and the
spurns
That patient merit of the
unworthy takes,
When he himself might his
quietus make
With
a bare bodkin? who would these
fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a
weary life,
But that the dread of
something after death,--
The
undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No
traveller returns,--
puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those
ills we have
Than fly to
others that we know not of?
Thus
conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native
hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale
cast of
thought;
And
enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their
currents turn awry,
And
lose the name of action.