What is the source and what does this quote mean To be or not to be that is the question?

Answer 1

To be, or not to be- that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer...

William Shakespeare, a line in the play Hamlet.

The question is asked by Hamlet in his famous soliloquy in Act 3 Scene 1 of Hamlet. What he means is, "Is it better to carry on living or to die?" In other words, is suicide justified? Hamlet reflects that "the fear of something after death, the undiscovered country from which no traveller returns" "makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others we know not of". In other words, since we don't know what happens after we die, we are safer suffering the problems of this life, since at least we know what they are. Therefore, he comes down on the side of not committing suicide.

Of course, he knows full well that death is no "undiscovered country from which no traveller returns". How? Because he has met the ghost of his father, who has returned from death to visit Hamlet. From him, Hamlet gets some idea of what might be waiting for him after death, and that suicide is clearly not worth it.

So why is Hamlet saying all this? Maybe it's because he knows Claudius is behind the arras (he did "closely send for Hamlet hither" after all), and he wants to put on his antic disposition, or rather his melancholic disposition, the portraiture of a man considering suicide, to fool the King.

Hamlet is asking whether he should commit suicide or not. Since suicide is forbidden in most religions, I think it is not the question to sum up all of the questions of life.