Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke. Actus Primus, Scena Prima • Paragraph 760
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_Ham._ To be, or not to be, that is the question:[8] Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,[9] 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,[10] Must give us pause:[11] There's the respect[12] That makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,[13] The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,[14] 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[15] With a bare bodkin?[16] Who would fardels bear,[17] To groan and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country, from whose bourn[18] No traveller returns,[19] 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;[20] And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; And enterprises of great pith and moment,[21] With this regard, their currents turn away, And lose the name of action.[22]--