ambition

Brave Macbeth… with his brandished steel which smoked with bloody execution … like valour’s minion carved out his passage

act 1 scene 2 - Macbeth is presented as the epitome of national ambition, valiance and heroism

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

act 1 scene 4 - Macbeth acknowledges that his ambition is shameful and must be hidden

Fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full of direst cruelty

act 1 scene 5 - Lady Macbeth knows that in order to achieve her sinister ambition, she needs to be consumed by evil

I have no spur / To prick the sides of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself / And falls on th' other

act 1 scene 7 - Macbeth admits that his only reason for killing Duncan is his own ambition

With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design / Moves like a ghost

act 2 scene 1 - By aligning himself with a historical predator, Macbeth acknowledges that his "design" (the murder) is predatory and shameful

To be thus is nothing, / But to be safely thus.

act 3 scene 1 - This shows that once ambition is realised, it is replaced by the paranoia of losing power