“What a piece of work is man!” A phrase within a monologue by Prince Hamlet in Shakespeare’s play of the same name.
Hamlet is saying that although humans may appear to think and act “nobly” they are essentially “dust”.
Hamlet is expressing his melancholy to his old friends ove the difference between the best that men aspire to be, and how they actually behave; the great divide that depresses him.
Pull the cork and pontificate on that.