William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

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 heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to,—’tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. 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 despised 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 fardels bear

To grunt and sweat under a weary life;

But that the dread of something after death,—

The undiscovered 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.—Soft you, now!

The fair Ophelia:—Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remembered.