...what is this quintessence of dust? 

Guildenstern
My lord, we were sent for.

Hamlet

I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your

discovery, and your secrecy to the king and queen moult no

feather. 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 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. What a

piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in

faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in

action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the

beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what

is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor woman

neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

Alas Poor Yorick!

Clown 1: […]Here's a skull now; this skull hath lain

in the earth three-and-twenty years.

Ham.

Whose was it?

1 Clown.

A whoreson, mad fellow's it was: whose do you think it was?

Ham.

Nay, I know not.

1 Clown.

A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! 'a pour'd a flagon of

Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick's

skull, the king's jester.

Ham.

This?

1 Clown.

E'en that.

Ham.

Let me see. [Takes the skull.] Alas, poor Yorick!--I knew him,

Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he

hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred

in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those

lips that I have kiss'd I know not how oft. Where be your gibes

now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that

were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your

own grinning? quite chap-fallen? Now, get you to my lady's

chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this

favour she must come; make her laugh at that.--Pr'ythee, Horatio,

tell me one thing.

Hor.

What's that, my lord?

Ham.

Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i' the earth?

Hor.

E'en so.

Ham.

And smelt so? Pah!

"There is only one real serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide" -- Camus, Myth Of Sisyphus

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?--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 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,

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,

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

The pangs of despis'd 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 these fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,--

The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns,--puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;

And enterprises of great pith and moment,

With this regard, their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!

The fair Ophelia!--Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remember'd.