Why Is The Line “To Be Or Not To Be” So Famous?

It is odd that this rather vague-sounding phrase is so much quoted all over the world. It's probably because, as the rest of the line states, "that IS the question." What are we doing here, and is there any point? Most of us wonder this at some time, although most people wouldn't take as bleak a view as Hamlet does. The rest of the speech explores the same idea – why do we go on living? – and comes to the conclusion that we stay alive because we are afraid, not so much of death itself as of what might come after it:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come…
Death is "the undiscovered country": Nobody comes back. You have "to be", Hamlet ends by saying, because "not to be" is just too frightening. There is no hint that life might be enjoyable – the speech is about "being", not living.
If you think about it, this must be one of the darkest lines in literature; and yet it goes to the heart of our existence.

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Really great answer! I never thought about it as "being" as in existing which is the quintessential dilemma. Not being is what? We just don't have an answer for that.

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