Macbeth - Quotes & Theme Statements

theme statement - fate/free will

Fate is an attempt to excuse the choices humans make of their own free will.

theme statement - appearance vs reality

Reality can be hidden behind a false appearance, but eventually the mask will fade and the consequences of reality will fester.

theme statement - unchecked ambition

Any amount of ambition, no matter how latent, can fuel a rise to power but left unchecked, it will inevitably lead to downfall.

fate/free will quote - Macbeth on debating whether or not he should take action or let fate do its thing

If chance will have me king, why chance may crown me without my stir.

fate/free will quote - witches’ prophecy

All hail Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter.

fate/free will quote - Macbeth on debating whether he needs to kill Banquo to be safe on the throne

To be thus is nothing, but to be safely thus.

fate/free will quote - irony as Macbeth tells Banquo to do as he pleases (fate cannot impact us, yet he is in that moment planning to enforce fate by killing Banquo)

let every man be master of his time

fate/free will quote - Banquo fears for how Macbeth rose to King so quickly

Thou hast it now, King, Cawdor, Glamis, all, as the weird women promis’d, and I fear thou played’st most foully for’t.

fate/free will quote - Macbeth hallucinates a dagger before killing King Duncan

Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand?

appearance vs reality quote - Macbeth debates whether he should kill the King and why such a positive prophecy is making him feel so anxious - shows contrast between his outward valour and his inner dark thoughts

If good, why do I yield to that suggestion, whose horrid image doth unfix my hair and make my seated heart knock at my ribs?

gender roles quote - Lady Macbeth calls to evil spirits to take her femininity

Unsex me here and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty… come to my woman’s breasts and take my milk for gall.

fate/free will quote - Banquo’s paradoxical prophecy regarding his purity of heart

Lesser than Macbeth and greater

unchecked ambition quote - Lady Macbeth plotting to spur Macbeth on

That I may pour my spirits in thine ear…

fate/free will quote - witches’ quizzical prophecy, making Macbeth believe nobody can harm him

none of woman born shall harm Macbeth

fate/free will + unchecked ambition quote - Macbeth is arrogant and overconfident after seeing the witches’ apparitions

The spirits that know all mortal consequences have pronounced me thus… the mind I sway by and the heart I bear shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear.

unchecked ambition + appearance vs reality quote - Lady Macbeth hallucinates blood on her hands

Out, damned spot! Out, I say!… What, will these hands ne’er be clean?

appearance vs reality quote - Lady Macbeth telling Macbeth to be sinister underneath but careful not to show it on the outside

Look like th’innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t

fate/free will quote - Macbeth tells himself there’s no harm in continuing down this path as he has already done so much harm (blood imagery)

I am in blood, stepp’d in so far that should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er

2 gender roles quotes - Lady Macbeth directly questions Macbeth’s masculinity and asks has your foolishness/irrational fear of Banquo’s ghost stripped you of your masculinity?

Are you a man?

What, quite unmann’d in folly?

appearance vs reality quote - Macbeth says to put on a mask of their true intentions

Make our faces vizards to our hearts, disguising what they are

Elizabethan England beliefs quote - night of Duncan murder demonstrates the chaos that unfolded upon assault of royalty as if assaulting God himself (Great Cycle of Being)

Some say, the earth was feverous and did shake

2 gender roles quotes - Lady Macbeth teases Macbeth for having panicked over his bloody hands while she is not, and Lady Macbeth recognises the ‘good’ of having killed Duncan and says the bloody hands are not a bad thing

My hands are of your colour, but I shame to wear a heart so white

A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight

appearance vs reality quote - Lady Macbeth using water to watch off Duncan’s blood

A little water clears us of this deed

2 unchecked ambition + gender roles quotes - Lady Macbeth tries to convince Macbeth to kill Duncan after he hesitates but he recognises the danger of being greedy and then she insults his masculinity

I dare do all that may become a man; who dares do more is none.

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.

gender roles + unchecked ambition quote - Lady Macbeth reads Macbeth’s letter about the prophecies and fears his ability to kill Duncan for the throne

I do fear thy nature, it is too full o’th’milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way

appearance vs reality quote - dramatic irony as Duncan reinforces that it’s hard to tell a man’s thoughts from their outward appearance

There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face

unchecked ambition quote - Malcolm is crowned Prince of Cumberland and Macbeth recognises that he must go through him to reach the throne

That is a step on which I must fall down, or else o’erleap

appearance vs reality + light/dark motif quote - Macbeth soliloquoy after Malcolm is crowned Prince and Macbeth realises what he must do

stars, hide your fires, let not light see my black and deep desires

unchecked ambition quote - Macbeth recognises the danger of his ambition and debates whether or not to murder Duncan (vaulting metaphor)

I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself and fall on th’other

gender roles + clothing motif quote - Lady Macbeth insults Macbeth’s courage and mocks his hesitation to kill Duncan

Was the hope drunk wherein you dress’d yourself?

clothing motif quote - Macbeth is named Thane of Cawdor and he questions how and why - shows his initial valour and purity of heart

The Thane of Cawdor lives; why do you dress me in borrow’d robes?

appearance vs reality quote - Macbeth says a paradox/antithesis which links him to the witches (similar to a chant they do in their introduction)

So fair and foul a day I have not seen

appearance vs reality + light/dark motif quote - during Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy when she learns of the prophecies and she asks to be hidden from God’s eye

Come, thick night, and pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, that my keen knife see not the wound it makes, nor heaven peek through the blanket of the dark to cry “Hold! Hold!”

gender roles quote - Macbeth refuses to tell Lady Macbeth of his plans to kill Banquo as he’s drunk on power

Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck

unchecked ambition quote - Macbeth resolves to ordering the killers to kill Fleance in order to secure his place on the throne (killing innocence symbolism)

And with him, to leave no rubs or botches in the work, Fleance, his son that keeps him company

unchecked ambition quote - Macbeth laughs at the witches’ apparition about Birnam Wood but is dramatic irony because we know the prophecy is true/dangerous

I will not be afraid of death and bane, till Birnam Forest come to Dunsinane

unchecked ambition quote - Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are paranoid and wracked with guilt over Duncan’s murder and talk of nightmares

Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep in the affliction of these terrible dreams that shake us nightly

unchecked ambition quote - Macbeth exclaims as he is wracked by guilt and his mind is filled with bad things

O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!

unchecked ambition quote - Macbeth contemplates killing Duncan and wishes that it could be a quick and easy act without any consequences

If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well it were done quickly

gender roles quote - Macbeth is in awe of Lady Macbeth’s ‘masculine’ qualities, wondering where they’ve been all this time and asking her to have sons so she can pass on her mettle to them

Bring forth men-children only, for thy undaunted mettle should compose nothing but males.

unchecked ambition quote - Macbeth is traumatised after he kills Duncan and hears voices who fear Macbeth’s evil and say they cannot sleep because of him

Sleep no more: Macbeth does murder sleep

unchecked ambition quote - Macbeth has become king through murder. He expects to feel powerful and free. Instead, he feels deeply trapped and paranoid because he worries about losing his throne and faces the ghost of Banquo

now I am cabin’d, cribb’d, confin’d, bound into saucy doubts and fears