Macbeth quotes🔥

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Cards (58)

fair is foul, and foul is fair (1.1) 
speaker? The three witches

meaning/significance? things aren't always what they seem
theme: appearance/reality
And oftentimes, to win us to our harm
the instruments of darkness tell us truths,
win us with honest trifles, to betray's
In deepest consequence (1.3)
speaker? Banquo (to Macbeth)

meaning/significance? A warning/fortelling of what will happen to Macbeth. that evil tries to tempt us with half truth and it will lead us to our doom
If chance will have me King, why
Chance may crown me,
Without my stir. (1.3) 
Speaker? Macbeth

Meaning/significance? Macbeth is hoping he will not have to do anything to become king, that fate will take care of it
theme: fate
That is a step on which
I must fall down or o'er leap
Stars, hide your fires!
Let not light see my black and deep desires. (1.4) 
speaker? Macbeth (to himself)

Meaning/significance? he is now commited to killing Duncan...it shows the growth of evil in Macbeth... showing what side he is aligning with... first step down a slipper slope
Yet do I fear thy nature.
It is too full o' the milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way. (1.5)
speaker? Lady Macbeth (to herself)

Meaning/significance? L. Macbeth is worried about her husband's wishwashiness... shows gender bending (shes crueler)
theme:gender bending
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! (1.5) 
speaker? Lady Macbeth

Meaning/significance? shows L.Macbeth siding with evil forces
themes: unnatural, gender bending
Look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under't. (I.5) 
speaker? Lady Macbeth (to Macbeth)

meaning/significance? L.Macbeth is telling her husband to lie and act innocent
themes: appearance/reality
I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself
And falls on the other - (1.7) 
speaker? Macbeth

meaning/significane? showing Macbeth's only motivation is his ambition
theme: ambition
I do all that may become a man
Who dares do more is none. (1.7)

When you durst do it, then you were a man; (1.7)
speaker(s)? Macbeth->lady macbeth

meaning/significance? Lady Macbeth is convincing her to husband to "be a man"... shows macbeths hesitance/humaness
theme: gender bending
False face must hide what false heart doth know (1.7) 
speaker? macbeth

meaning/significance? Macbeth shows his commitment to putting up an act of being innocent, choosing to hide things instead of confessing/repenting
theme:appearance/reality
Methought I heard a voice cry "Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep"—the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care. (2.2) 
speaker? Macbeth

meaning/significance? Shows Macbeth is feeling guilty (for killing Duncan) and also jumpy
themes? sleep/dreams, clothes motif
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? (2.2) 
speaker? Macbeth

meaning/signficance? showing his guilt, how he feels he will never be clean, evil will spread as a result (dominoes effect)
themes? order/disorder, guilt, great chaine of being
A little water clears us of this deed,
How easy is it then! (2.2)
speaker? Lady Macbeth

meaning/significance? saying it will be easy to shake this off/be clean/guilt-free, contrasts towards Macbeth who says the opposite
themes? deception
there's daggers in men's smiles. (2.3) 
speaker? Donlbaine (to malcom)

Meaning/significance? Donlbaine saying you cannot trust anyone
theme? appearance v. reality
Thou hast it now—King, Cawdor, Glamis, all
As the Weird Women promised, and I fear
Thou played'st most foully for't. (3.1)
speaker? Banquo (about Macbeth)

meaning/significance? Banquo suspects that Macbeth killed Duncan for the crown
themes? ambition, unnatural evil
...To be thus is nothing,
But to be safely thus. Our fears in Banquo
Stick deep. (3.1) 
speaker? Macbeth

meaning/significance? shows his growing ambition and paranoia, shows he is still worried about the prophecy of Banquo's decendents
theme: ambition
Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown
And put a barren scepter in my grip,
Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand,
No son of mine succeeding. (3.1) 
speaker? Macbeth

meaning/significance? worring that his kids will not get the crown, shows his growing ambition (he's not happy being king, but he also wants kids to be kings)
theme: ambition
...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) 
speaker? lady macbeth

meaning/significance? she reveals regret/doubt, shows the hedonists paradox, shows her insecurity and fearfullness
themes: guilt
Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill. (3.2) 
speaker? Macbeth

meaning/significance? represents how one bad things leads to another (snowball/dominoe) effects of evil
themes:evil
Thou canst not say I did it. Never shake
Thy gory locks at me. (3.4) 
speaker? Macbeth (to banquo's ghost)

meaning/significance? showing guilt
theme: guilt
It will have blood, they say; blood will have blood.
Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak. (3.4) 
speaker? Macbeth

meaning/significance? showing how he is scared, forshadowing what will happen
theme: guilt, idea of vengance/things put back into order
For mine own good
All causes shall give way. I am in blood
Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er. (3.4)
speaker? Macbeth

meaning/significane? I don't care about anything but my own good anymore...I'm in to far, it's to late for me to go back (no turning back)
theme: ambition
Be bloody, bold and resolute. Laugh to scorn
The power of man, for none of woman born
Shall harm Macbeth. (4.1)
speaker? Bloody child (2nd apperation) (to macbeth)

meaning/significance? encourages false sense of security
theme: fate
Macbeth shall never vanquished be until
Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill
Shall come against him. (4.1) 
speaker? 3rd apperation (crowned child w/ tree)

meaning/significance? shows how evil fouls us, lures Macgeth into a false sense of security
themes: fate, temptation
From this moment
The firstlings of my heart shall be
The firstlings of my hand. (4.1) 
speaker? macbeth

meaning/significance? proves he feels secure (as a result of the two prophecies), shows he is growing more impulsive and ambitious
themes: evil
Each new morn new widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows
Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds
As if felt with Scotland, and yelled out
Like syllable of dolor. (4.3) 
speaker? Macduff (to malcom)

meaning/significance? describing the decaying state of Scotland
theme: order/disorder
He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy,
And sundry blessings hang about his throne
That speak him full of grace. (4.3)
speaker? Malcom (about English King)

meaning/significance? his praise and discription of the English king shows what a good king is like in contrast to Macbeth
themes: divine right of kings, order/disorder, nature of leadership
Alas poor country,
Almost afraid to know itself. It cannot
Be called our mother, but our grave. (4.3) 
speaker? Ross (to Macduff and Malcom)

meaning/significance? shows that because the great chaine of being was disrupted (by macbeth) the country is in bad shape
theme: divine right of kinds, order/disorder, great chaine of being
All my pretty ones?
Did you say 'all'? O hell-kite! All?
What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop? (4.3) 
speaker? Macduff (when he learns his household was murdered)

meaning/significance: shows his shock and grief, example of how Macbeth's cruetly is effecting other people
Out, damned spot, out I say! (5.1) 
speaker? Lady Macbeth (when she is sleep walking)

meaning/signifcance? shows her guilt and how she is haunted by it
themes: supernatural, unnatural
Unnatural deeds do breed unnatural troubles.
Infected minds to their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.
More needs she the divine than the physician. (5.1) 
Speaker? Doctor

meaning/significance? Lady Macduff needs divine help
theme: sickness, unnatural (evil)
And that which should accompany old age,
As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have... (5.3) 
speaker? Macbeth

meaning/significance? I'm sick at heart, shows he is reaping what he has sown, shows how he is realy missing the important things of life
theme: evil, pride and ambition
She should have died hereafter.
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a waking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. (5.5)
speaker? Macbeth

meaning/significance? (shows despaire after her death?) shows how his world view is very nihilistic (no heaven or hell, life is short and meaningless)
theme: religion, evil, dying
Of all men else I have avoided thee.
But get thee back. My soul is too much charged
With blood of thine already. (5.8)
Speaker? Macbeth (to malcom)

meaning/significance? saying I don't want to kill you because I've already killed your family, shows a more human side, shows he feels guilty
theme: guilt
...this, and what needful else
That calls upon us, by grace of grace,
We will perform in measure, time, and place. (5.8
Speaker? Malcom (end of play speech)

meaning/significance? shows the restoration of order, shows that malcom and proper ruling family is aligned with good/holy powers
themes: order/disorder, divine right of kings
"Thou canst not say I did it. Never shake thy gory locks at me." - Lady Macbeth to Duncan's ghost
Macduff represents loyalty, justice, and order.
"Come thick night And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell" - Lady Macbeth
Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o' the milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way. (Act 1, Scene 5) 
Lady Macbeth, after receiving her husband's letter about the witches' prophecy, expresses her fear that he isn't evil enough
Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear
And chastise with the valor of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round (Act 1, Scene 5) 
Lady Macbeth wants to persuade Macbeth into killing the King