"To be and not to be, that is the answer."
— Piet Hein
January 1, 1970
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Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Added on April 10, 2026
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Poets from Denmark
People from Copenhagen
Mathematicians from Denmark
Original Language: English
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This witticism derived from William Shakespeare's line "To be or not to be; that is the question" in Hamlet, has sometimes been attributed to Hein, but also to many others. The earliest occurrence so far located in research for Wikiquote was published in A Calendar of Doubts and Faiths (1930) by William Marias Malisoff.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Piet_Hein
This witticism derived from William Shakespeare's line "To be or not to be; that is the question" in Hamlet, has sometimes been attributed to Hein, but also to many others. The earliest occurrence so far located in research for Wikiquote was published in A Calendar of Doubts and Faiths (1930) by William Marias Malisoff.