Conscience makes cowards of us all

To make sense of this quotation from Shakespeare, the context must be remembered. In Hamlet Act III, Scene I, Hamlet questions existence (“to be or not to be”) and contemplates suicide. What prevents him from suicide is his conscience that tells him he will be damned for it. This is what Hamlet interprets as cowardly that many of us would dispute. The exact quotation is, “Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.”