Macbeth quotes

• Macbeth: 'I have no spur to prick the size of my intent save vaulting ambition which leaps itself and falls on the other'
• Macbeth's ambition


  It is not enough to drive him to kill Duncan, it is overreaching itself
• Macbeth's ambition


  Needs Lady Macbeth to drive him to kill Duncan
• Macbeth's ambition alone is not enough to make him carry out the murder of Duncan
• Macbeth's fatal flaw is not just ambition, it is his reliance on Lady Macbeth
• Witches: 'Fair is foul and foul is fair hover through the fog and filthy air'
• Quotation


  • Introduces the theme of duality and appearance vs reality
  • Uses fricative sounds to convey aggression and violence
• The witches do not directly tell Macbeth to kill Duncan, they only prophesise the future
• Lady Macbeth: 'Out, damned spot! out, I say!...Hell is murky...what need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?'
• Lady Macbeth


  • Realises the guilt of her actions and the damnation of her soul
  • Believes they can get away with the murder of Duncan as they are in power
• Lady Macbeth's logic in believing they can get away with the murder is proven wrong when Macbeth's guilt is revealed
• 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!'
• Quotation


  • Rejects femininity and patriarchal constraints on women's power
  • Suggests Shakespeare's message about the dangers of cruelty in kingship
• Women in Shakespeare's time could only gain power through their relationships with men, which encourages Lady Macbeth's manipulation of Macbeth
• Witches: 'Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none'
• Prophecy about Banquo


  He will father a line of kings, though he himself will not be king
• This prophecy flatters King James I, who was believed to be a descendant of Banquo, suggesting his divine right to rule
• Banquo is portrayed as the moral opposite of the evil Macbeth, as a warning to nobles against plotting against the king
• Lady Macbeth: 'Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done't.'
• Lady Macbeth


  She was unable to kill Duncan herself because he reminded her of her own father
• This quotation shows Lady Macbeth's rejection of traditional feminine roles and maternal instincts
• Macbeth is going to be much happier than Macbeth because he's not going to act on his evil thoughts
• The witches know that Macbeth won't be happy


  Because he will act on those evil thoughts
• When Macbeth goes back to see the witches later on once he's King, one of the witches says "by the pricking of my thumbs, Something Wicked This Way Comes"
• The witches see Macbeth as inherently evil
• Lady Macbeth persuades Macbeth to kill Duncan, not the witches
• Lady Macbeth: 'Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it'
• Lady Macbeth's quote


  Comes straight out of the Adam and Eve story in Genesis
• Lady Macbeth is portrayed as a worse figure than Macbeth
• King James believed that women are much more evil than men, and used the story of Eve as proof
• Shakespeare is flattering King James by including the witches and the misogynistic portrayal of Lady Macbeth
• King James had a medal produced to commemorate his victory over the Gunpowder Plot, showing a snake (the plotters) underneath a flower
• Macbeth: 'I begin to be weary of the Sun and wish the estate of the world were now undone'
• This quote shows that Macbeth understands he is going to die, and wants to destroy everything
• Macbeth's nihilistic desire to destroy the world is a childish refusal to take responsibility for his actions
• Shakespeare wants to emphasize the importance of Christian faith to discourage the nobles from killing the king, who is appointed by God