Hamlet

by William Shakespeare

I have of late,—but wherefore I know not,—lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile 305 promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire,—why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more. Sure he that made us with such large discourse, Looking before and after, gave us not 40 That capability and godlike reason To fust in us unus’d.

Rightly to be great Is not to stir without great argument, But greatly to find quarrel in a straw When honour’s at the stake.