Macbeth Quotes
Violence Quotes
Lady Macbeth: Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood; Stop up the access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between The effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts, And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers, (1. 5. 46-54)
Macduff: I shall do so, But I must also feel it as a man. I cannot but remember such things were That were most precious to me. (4. 3. 261-264)
Macbeth: From this moment The very firstlings of my heart shall be The firstlings of my hand. And even now, To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done! The castle of Macduff I will surprise, Seize upon Fife, give to the edge o’ the sword His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls That trace him in his line. (4. 1. 168-176)
Ambition Quotes
Macbeth: My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, Shakes so my single state of man that function Is smother’d in surmise, and nothing is But what is not. (1. 3. 60-163)
Lady Macbeth: Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be What thou art promised: yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great; Art not without ambition, but without The illness should attend it (1. 5. 15-20)
Banquo: My noble partner You greet with present grace and great prediction Of noble having and of royal hope, That he seems rapt withal. To me you speak not. If you can look into the seeds of time, And say which grain will grow and which will not, Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear Your favors nor your hate. (1. 3. 61-68)
Guilt Quotes
Lady Macbeth: Naught’s had, all’s spent, Where our desire is got without content. ‘Tis safer to be that which we destroy Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy. (3. 2. 6-9)
Macbeth: Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand? No. This my hand will rather The multitudinous seas incarnadine, Making the green one red. (2. 2. 81-84)
Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst! (2. 2. 96)
