Character Quotes – Macbeth

Lady Macbeth “Come, you spiritsThat tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,And fill me from the crown to the toe topfulOf direst cruelty!” (I.v.38-40).
Lady Macbeth “Hie thee hither,That I may pour my spirits in thine earAnd chastise with the valor of my tongueAll that impedes thee from the golden round” (I.v.13-16).
Lady Macbeth “When you durst do it, then you were a man; and to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man” (I.vii.49-51).
Lady Macbeth Who can be described as ambitious, devoted, and manipulative?
Lady Macbeth “What beast was’t then, that made you break this enterprise to me? When you durst do it, then you were a man; And to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man.” (V.vii.68-69)
Lady Macbeth “Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under ‘t.” (I. v. 62-63)
Lady Macbeth and Macbeth These two characters can be described as deceiving
Lady Macbeth “But screw your courage to the sticking place, and we’ll not fail” (I. VII. 68).
Lady Macbeth “Hey now my lord? Why do you keep alone, of sorriest fancies your companions making, using those thoughts which should indeed have died with them they think on? Things without all remedy should be without regard. What’s done is done” (III.ii.379).
Lady Macbeth “Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead Are but as pictures; ’tis the eye of childhood”(II.ii.51-52).
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth What two characters can be defined as ruthless?
Lady Macbeth “All our service, in every point twice done and then done double, were poor and single business to contend against those honors deep and broad wherewith your majesty loads our house. For those of old, and the late dignities heaped up to them, we rest your hermits” (I.vi. 14-20).
Lady Macbeth “The raven himself is hoarseThat croaks the fatal entrance of DuncanUnder my battlements.”
Lady Macbeth “The Thane of Fife had a wife. Where is she now? What, will these hands ne’er be clean? No more o’ that, my lord, no more o’ that. You mar all with this starting” (V. i. 34-36).
Lady Macbeth “I have given suck, and know How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me. I would, while it was smiling in my face, Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you Have done to this” (I. vii. 54-59).
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! Make thick my blood; stop up the access and passage to remorse, that no compunctious vistings of nature shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between the effect and it!” (I. v. 354)
Lady Macbeth “Things without all remedy should be without regard: what’s done is done” (III.ii.11-12).
Lady Macbeth “What beast wasn’t then, that made you break this enterprise with me? When you durst do it, then you were a man: An to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man”(l.vii.47-51).
Lady Macbeth “I would, while it was smiling in my face, Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums, And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn as you Have done to this”(Macbeth, I, vii).
Lady Macbeth Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard To be the same in thine own act and valor As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life, And live a coward in thine own esteem; Letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would,” Like the poor cat i’ the adage?”(Macbeth,I,vii).
Lady Macbeth “Come, you spirits/That tend on moral thoughts, unsex me here/And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full/Of direst cruelty” (1.1.37-50).
Lady Macbeth “To beguile the time/Look like the time. Bear welcome in your eye/Your hand, your tongue. Look like th’ innocent flower/But be the serpent under’t” (1.5.60-63).
Lady Macbeth “Was the hope drunkWherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since?And wakes it now, to look so green and paleAt what it did so feely? From this timeSuch I account thy love” (I.7.35-39).
Macbeth “I am settles, and bend up each corporal agent to this terrible feat. Away, and mock the time with the fairest show. False face must hide what the false heart doth know,” (I.vii.79-82).
Macbeth “Stars, hide your fires,” (I.iv.50).
Macbeth “Accursed be that tongue that tells me so, / For it hath cowed my better part of man!” (V.viii.17-18).
Macbeth This character can be defined as ambitious, fearful, and confident
Macbeth “If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me.” (I.iii 144-145)
Macbeth “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. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible to feeling as to sight? or art thou but a dagger of the mind, a false creation, proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?” (II.i 33-38)
Macbeth “We are yet but young in deed”(III.iv 144)
Macbeth can be described as murderous, tryannical, foolish, overconfident, and untrustworthy
Macbeth “to know my deed, ’twere best not know myself.” (II.i.71)
Macbeth “Stepp’d in so far that, should [he] wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o’er.” (III.iv.134-137).
Macbeth “Let not light see my black and deep desires.” (I.iv.53).
Macbeth “Stars, hide your fires:Let not light see my black and deep desires:The eye wink at the hand; yet let that beWhich the eye fears, when it is done, to see.”
Macbeth can be described as egotistical, dishonest, and selfish
Macbeth “I will not be afraid of death and bane till Birnam Forest come to Dunsinane” (V. iii. 59-60).
Macbeth “For mine own good/All causes shall give way. I am in blood/ Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more,Returning were as tedious as go o’er.” (III.iv.24)
Macbeth “There’s no art/To find the mind’s construction in the face.”
Macbeth “My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,Shakes so my single state of man that functionIs smother’d in surmise, and nothing isBut what is not.” (I.III.9).
MacDuff “All my pretty ones? Did you say all? O hell-kite! All? All my pretty chickens and their dam at once fell swoop?”
MacDuff “Let us instead hold fast the mortal sword, and like good men, bestride our downfall’n birthdom. Each new morn new windows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows strike heaven on the face, that it resounds as if it felt with Scotland and yelled out like syllable of door.”
MacDuff “Front to front, bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself within swords length, set him, if he ‘scape, Heaven forgive him too”
MacDuff “If thou beest slain, and with no stroke of mine,/ My wife and children’s ghosts will haunt me still./ I cannot strike at wretched kerns whose arms/ are hired to bear their staves”(V.vii.17-19).
Malcolm “What will you do? Let’s not consort with them:To show an unfelt sorrow is an officeWhich the false man does easy. I’ll to England.” (II.iii.141-144)
Malcolm “Be not offended: I speak not as in absolute fear of you. I think our country sinks beneath the yoke; It weeps, it bleeds; and each new day a gash Is added to her wounds: I think withal There would be hands uplifted in my right; And here from gracious England have I offer Of goodly thousands: but, for all this, When I shall tread upon the tyrant’s head, Or wear it on my sword, yet my poor country Shall have more vices than it had before, More suffer and more sundry ways than ever, By him that shall succeed.”(IV.iii.37-49)
Malcolm “This tune goes manly. Come, go we to the King; our power is ready; Our lack is nothing but our leave. MacbethIs ripe for shaking, and the powers above Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may.The night is long that never finds the day.” (IV.iii.236-240)
Malcolm “Be not offended. I speak not as in absolute fear of you. I think our country sinks beneath the yoke. It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash Is added to her wounds. I think withal There would be hands uplifted in my right; And here from gracious England have I offer Of goodly thousands. But, for all this, When I shall tread upon the tyrant’s head Or wear it on my sword, yet my poor country Shall have more vices then it has before, More suffer, and more sundry ways than ever, By him that shall succeed”(IV.iii.38-49).
Malcolm “Be this the whetstone of your sword: let grief convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it” (IV.iii.231-232)
Malcolm “To show an unfelt sorrow is an office which the false man does easy” (II. iii. 128-129).
Malcolm “Our power is ready; Our lack is nothing but our leave. Macbeth is ripe for shaking, and the powers above put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may. The night is long that never finds the day” (IV. iii. 239-243).
Malcolm “My first false speaking/ Was this upon myself. What I am truly/ Is thine and my poor country’s to command-” (IV. iii. 130-132).
Malcolm “My first false speaking was this upon myself.” (IV.iii.130-131)
Malcolm “Let’s make us med’cines of our great revenge To cure this deadly grief” (IV. III. 408)
Malcolm “Now we’ll together, and the chance of goodness Be like our warranted quarrel.” (IV. iii. 136-137)
Malcolm “What I believe, I’ll wail; What know, believe; and what I can redress, As I shall find the time to friend, I will”(IV.iii.8-10).
Malcolm “Develish MacbethBy many of these trains hath sought to win meInto his power, and modest wisdom plucks meFrom overcredulous haste. But God aboveDeal between thee and me, for even nowI put myself to thy direction andUnspeak mine own detraction, here abjureThe taints and blames I laid upon myself,For strangers to my nature”(IV.III.117-125).
Donalbain “There’s daggers in men’s smiles”
Donalbain “The near in blood the nearer bloody”
Malcolm “What’s more to do,/ Which would be planted newly with the time,/ As calling home our exiled friends abroad/ That fled the snares of watchful tyranny,/ Producing forth the cruel ministers/ Of this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen” (V.viii.65-70)
Malcolm “I am yet/ Unknown to woman, never was forsworn,/ Scarcely have coveted what was mine own,/ At no time broke my faith, would not betray/ The devil to his fellow, and delight/ No less/ in truth than life. My first false speaking/ Was this upon myself. What I am truly,/ Is thine and my poor country’s to command” (IV.iii.123-134)
Malcolm “‘Tis his main hope;/for where there is advantage to be given,/both more and less have given him the revolt,/and none serve with him but constrained things/whose hearts are absent too” (V.iv.10-14)
The Witches Double, double toil and trouble…
Hecate “Loves for his own ends not for you”
Hecate “He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear His hopes ‘bove wisdom, grace, and fear./And you all know, security/Is mortal’s chiefest enemy”