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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 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,
Th' oppressor's wrong,
the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of dispriz'd love,
the law's delay,
The insolence of office,
and the spurns
That patient merit
of th' 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 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 pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.