To be or not to be – that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler of the mind to suffer the
Slings and arrows of outrageous fortunes
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 wished.
To die, to sleep – to sleep, perchance to dream.
Aye, 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 a respect that makes calamity 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 disprized love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of unworthy tasks when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin?
Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But to dread something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns,
Puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others we know not of?
Thus conscience doth makes cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o’er
With the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises the great pitch and moment with this regard
Their currents turn awry and lose the name of action.
