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 heart-ache 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; aye, 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 despised love, 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 undiscover’d 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?
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.
— William Shakespeare, from Hamlet, in A Treasury of the Familiar, Ralph L. Woods, pp. 328-329.
There is nothing more frightful than a bustling ignorance.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goëthe, in Ibid., p. 400.
If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap, than his neighbors, though he builds his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, in Ibid., p. 412.
If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap, whence every one must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.
— Solon, in Ibid., p. 446.
ON HIS BLINDNESS
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he return and chide,
‘Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?’
I fondly, ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, ‘God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts. Who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o’er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.’
— John Milton, in Ibid., p. 447.
To each his suffering; all are men,
Condemn’d alike to groan,
The tender for another’s pain,
The unfeeling for his own.
Yet, ah! Why should they know their fate,
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies?
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; — where ignorance is bliss,
‘Tis folly to be wise.
— Thomas Gray, from On a Distant Prospect of Eton College, in Ibid., p. 505.
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