The Quotes canon
Sourced and curated.
Every quote has been curated by hand and carefully authenticated.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
The Renaissance5 quotes
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 wished. 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. — William Shakespeare · 1616O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His canon ’gainst self-slaughter! O God, God,
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world! — William Shakespeare · 1616Is it sin to rush into the secret house of death
Ere death dare come to us? — William Shakespeare · 1607Against self-slaughter
There is a prohibition so divine
That cravens my weak hand. — William Shakespeare · 1611So every bondman in his own hand bears
The power to cancel his captivity. — William Shakespeare · 1599Classical antiquity1 quote
Man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door of his prison and run away…a man should wait, and not take his own life until God summons him. — Socrates · 360 BC