Macbeth Quotes and Themes

Macbeth Quotes and Themes

1. Guilt

   • Macbeth
     • "If it were done when 'tis done, then twere well it were done quickly... He's here in double trust : first, as I am his kinsman and his subject, strong both against his deed;then, as his host" 1:7
       • "You are too full of the milk of human kindness to strike aggressively at your first opportunity"
     • "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making thw green one red" 2:2
       • "Will all the water in the ocean wash this blood from my hands? No, instead my hands will stain the seas scarlet, turning the green waters red."
   • Lady Macbeth
     • "What's done is done." 3:2
       • "What’s done is done."
     • "Out, damned spot! out, I say" 5:1
       • "Come out, damned spot! Out, I command you!"
     • "All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand" 5:1
       • "All the perfumes of Arabia couldn’t make my little hand smell better"

2. Supernatural

   • Witches
     • "Fair is Foul, and foul is fair" 1:1
     • "Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble." 4:1
       • "Double, double toil and trouble, Fire burn, and cauldron bubble."
     • "When shall we three meet again in thunder, lightning, or in rain? When the hurlyburly's done, when the battle is lost and won." 1:1
     • "By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes" 4:1
       • "I can tell that something wicked is coming by the tingling in my thumbs"
   • Lady Macbeth
     • "Come, you spirit that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty 1:5
       • "Come, you spirits that asist murderous thoughts, make me less like a woman and more like a man, and fill me from head to toe with deadly cruelty!"
   • Macbeth
     • "I bear a charmed life" 5:8
       • "I lead a charmed life,"
     • "Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand?" 2:1
       • "Is this a dagger I see in front of me, with its handle pointing toward my hand?"

3. Masculinity

   • Lady Macbeth & Macbeth
     • "I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none" 1:7
       • "I dare to do only what is proper for a man to do. He who dares to do more is not a man at all."
     • "Screw your courage to the sticking-place" 1:7
       • "? If you get your courage up, we can’t fail."
     • She is questioning manhood
   • Duncan
     • "Nothing in life became him like the leaving it; he died as one that had been studied in his death to throw away the dearest thing he owed, as 't were a careless trifle" 1:4
       • " He never did anything in his whole life that looked as good as the way he died. He died like someone who had practiced how to toss away his most cherished possession as if it were a worthless a piece of garbage."
   • Macbeth
     • (From Banquo) "You should be women, and yet your beard forbid me to interpret taht you are so" 1:3
       • "You look like women, but your beards keep me from believing that you really are."

4. Ambition

   • Macbeth
     • "If chance will have me king, why, chancee may crown me" 1:3
       • " If fate wants me to be king, perhaps fate will just make it happen and I won’t have to do anything."
     • (from Lady Macbeth) "Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under't" 1:5
       • "You should look like an innocent flower, but be like the snake that hides underneath the flower."
     • "I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o'erlaps itslef, and falls on the other" 1:7
       • "I can’t spur myself to action. The only thing motivating me is ambition, which makes people rush ahead of themselves toward disaster."

5. Weakness

   • Macbeth
     • Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' the milk of human kindness" 1:5
       • "You are too full of the milk of human kindness to strike aggressively at your first opportunity."
   • Donalbain and Malcolm
     • "There's daggers in men's smiles" 2:3
       • "Wherever we go, men will smile at us while hiding daggers."
   • Banquo
     • "O, treachary! Fly, good Fleance ,fly, fly ,fly. Thou mayst revenge!" 3:3
       • "Oh, this is treachery! Get out of here, good Fleance, run, run, run! Someday you can get revenge.—Oh, you bastard!"