Macbeth quotes Flashcards
Theme: ambition/ power
Macbeth talking about his wishes to become king.
‘Black and deep desires’
Theme: ambition/ power
By the end of the play Macbeth is not afraid to die and has gained confidence.
‘I’ll fight till from my bones my flesh be hack’d.’
Theme: ambition/ power
Macbeth’s final words showing his false feelings of invincibility and sheer ambition not to give up.
‘Lay on, Macduff, and damn’d be him that first cries, ‘Hold enough!’
Theme: ambition/ power
Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth to stop being a coward about killing Duncan.
‘But screw your courage to the sticking place, and we’ll not fail.’
Theme: ambition/ power
Banquo’s reaction when he hears Macbeth has been named Thane of Cawdor.
‘What, can the devil speak true?’
Theme: deception
Macbeth knows he needs to be two-faced.
‘False face must hide what the false heart doth know.’
Theme: deception
Alone, Banquo reflects on Macbeth’s rise to the throne.
‘Thou hast it now: King, Cawdor, Glamis, all, as the the weird women promised, and I fear thou play’dst most foully for’t.’
Theme: guilt/ paranoia
Macbeth hallucinates and sees a dagger on his way to kill Duncan.
‘Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand?’
Theme: guilt/ paranoia
After Macbeth has killed Duncan, he becomes paranoid about what he has done.
‘How is’t with me, when every noise appals me?’
Theme: guilt/ paranoia
After killing Duncan, Macbeth fears he will never sleep again from the guilt.
‘Methought I heard a voice cry, ‘Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep!’
Theme: guilt/ paranoia
After Banquo’s ghost has gone, Macbeth feels that his crime is pursuing him.
‘It will have blood they say: blood will have blood.’
Theme: guilt/ paranoia
Lady Macbeth finds that getting what you want doesn’t bring peace.
‘Nought’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.’
Theme: guilt/ paranoia
Lady Macbeth hallucinates blood on her hands before her death.
‘Out damned spot! Out, I say!’
Theme: religion
He cannot say this after the murder, showing he has a conscience.
‘Amen’
Theme: good versus evil
Macbeth becomes more evil as the play progresses and even mimics the witches.
‘So fair and foul a day I have not seen.’
Theme: good versus evil
Macbeth reflects on the fact that there is no way back from the evil he has started.
‘I am in blood, stepped in so far that should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er.’
Theme: good versus evil
The witches’ philosophy on life, showing that nothing is ever what it seems.
‘Fair is foul, and foul is fair.’
Theme: good versus evil
The witches predict Macbeth’s arrival before he arrives to see them the second time.
‘Something wicked this way comes.’
Theme: good versus evil
The second apparition delivers this deceptive prophecy which makes Macbeth feel invincible.
‘None of woman born shall harm Macbeth.’
Theme: supernatural
Macbeth summons help for Banquo’s death.
‘And with thy bloody and invisible hand cancel and tear to pieces that great bond which keeps me pale!’
Theme: gender at the time
After receiving her husband’s letter about the witches’ prophecy, Lady Macbeth expresses her fear that he isn’t bad enough.
‘Yet I do fear thy nature, it is too full o’th’milk of human kindness, to catch the nearest way.’
Theme: gender at the time
Lady Macbeth speaking to Macbeth.
‘Leave all the rest to me.’
Theme: gender at the time
Upon hearing that King Duncan is to stay the night in her castle, Lady Macbeth builds herself up to kill him.
‘Come, you spirits, that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here and fill me from the crown to the toe topfull of direst cruelty.’
