Key Macbeth Quotes Flashcards
What does Macbeth’s bravery signify?
‘for brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name), / Disdaining fortune, with his brandish’d steel’
(1.2)
How do new honors affect Macbeth?
‘new honours come upon him, / Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould / But with the aid of use.’
(1.3)
What does the speaker say about trust?
‘There’s no art / To find the mind’s construction in the face: / He was a gentleman on whom I built / An absolute trust.’
(1.4)
What is Macbeth’s ambition described as?
‘Thou wouldst be great, / Art not without ambition, but without / The illness should attend it.’
(1.5)
What is Macbeth contemplating in his soliloquy?
‘If it were done, when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well / It were done quickly: if th’assassination / Could trammel up the consequence, and catch / with his surcease success’
(1.7)
What vision does Macbeth have?
‘Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee:- / I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.’
(2.1)
What does Macbeth say about the blood on his hands?
‘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)
What does Macbeth compare the unnatural deed to?
‘Tis unnatural / Even like the deed that’s done. On Tuesday last, I A falcon, towering / in her pride of place, / Was by a mousing owl hawk’d at, and killed!’
(2.4)
What does Macbeth say about safety?
‘To be thus is nothing, but to be safely thus.’
(3.1)
What is Macbeth’s reaction to the death of his family?
‘What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam, / At one fell swoop?’
(4.3)
How does Macbeth describe life?
‘Life’s but a walking shadow; a poor player, / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage / And then is heard no more.’
(5.5)
