Mortal coil is a poetic term that means the troubles of daily life and the strife and suffering of the world. It is used in the sense of a burden to be carried or abandoned, most famously in the phrase "shuffle off this mortal coil" from the "To be, or not to be" monologue in Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Read more about Mortal Coil: Derivation, Schopenhauer's Speculation
Famous quotes containing the word mortal:
“Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma or a hideous dream.
The genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council, and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
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