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?
- Source
- Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1
- Written
- c. 1600
About this quotation
Hamlet speaks the soliloquy alone, weighing whether it is nobler to endure misfortune or to resist it. Hamlet survives in three early printings that differ in wording and punctuation, so versions of these lines vary slightly between editions.