Ambition

Act 1 Scene 3, Banquo talking about the witches

‘The instruments of darkness tell us truths,/ Win us with honest trifles, to betrays/ In deepest consequence.’

Act 1 Scene 4, Macbeth considers what he has to do to achieve power after hearing the prophecies

‘Stars, hide your fires!/Let not light see my black and deep desires.’

‘Stars, hide your fires!/Let not light see my black and deep desires.’

‘Too full of the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way.’

Act 1 Scene 7, Macbeth wonders whether his reasons for killing the king are good enough

‘I have no spur/To prick the sides of my intent, but only/Vaulting ambition, which overleaps itself/And falls on the other

Act 5 Scene 5, Macbeth realises all his plotting and ambition has been for nothing

‘Life's but a walking shadow…Signifying nothing.’