To Be, or Not to Be (Hamlet)

The Question

¹To be, or not to be, that is the question:

²Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

³The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

⁴Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

⁵And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;

⁶No more; and by a sleep to say we end

⁷The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

⁸That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation

⁹Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;

The Dream

¹⁰To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;

¹¹For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

¹²When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

¹³Must give us pause: there's the respect

¹⁴That makes calamity of so long life;

The Burden

¹⁵For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

¹⁶The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

¹⁷The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

¹⁸The insolence of office and the spurns

¹⁹That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

²⁰When he himself might his quietus make

²¹With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,

²²To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

²³But that the dread of something after death,

²⁴The undiscover'd country from whose bourn

²⁵No traveller returns, puzzles the will

²⁶And makes us rather bear those ills we have

²⁷Than fly to others that we know not of?

The Conscience

²⁸Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

²⁹And thus the native hue of resolution

³⁰Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

³¹And enterprises of great pith and moment

³²With this regard their currents turn awry,

³³And lose the name of action.