Hamlet

by William Shakespeare

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice: Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.

This above all,—to thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

‘Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; 125 Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.

To be, or not to be,—that is the question:— 65 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 70 The heartache, 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, 75 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,

I must be cruel, only to be kind: Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.—

What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.

Let me see. [Takes the skull.] Alas, poor Yorick!—I