To be or Not to be — William Shakespeare
To be, or not to be — that is the question:
Is it 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 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 — ah, 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 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 traveler returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?”
