Ambition and Power Quotes in Macbeth

If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well / It were done quickly.

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 pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums / And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn as you / Have done to this.

I go, and it is done. The bell invites me. / Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell / That summons thee to heaven or to hell.

Had I but died an hour before this chance, / I had liv’d a blessed time; for, from this instant / There’s nothing serious in mortality. / All is but toys: renown and grace is dead; / The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees / Is left this vault to brag of.

Where we are, / There’s daggers in men’s smiles: the near in blood, / The nearer bloody.

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

Upon my head they plac’d a fruitless crown, / And put a barren sceptre in my gripe, / Thence to be wrench’d with an unlineal hand, / No son of mine succeeding.

Naught’s had, all’s spent, / Where our desire is got without content: / ’Tis safer to be that which we destroy, / Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.

I am in blood / Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o’er.

He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear / His hopes ’bove wisdom, grace, and fear. / And you all know, security / Is mortals’ chiefest enemy.