Quotes to inspire and reflect

Merciful powers! Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature Gives way to in repose.

The moon is down.

Away, and mock the time with fairest show: False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

Macbeth: If we should fail— Lady Macbeth: We fail! But screw your courage to the sticking-place, And we’ll not fail.

Memory, the warder of the brain.

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.

Nor time nor place Did then adhere.

Letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would,” Like the poor cat i’ the adage.

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

This even-handed justice.

I have bought Golden opinions from all sorts of people.

Duncan: This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself Unto our gentle senses. Banquo: This guest of summer, The temple-haunting martlet, does approve By his lov’d mansionry that the heaven’s breath Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze, Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle: Where they most breed and haunt, I have observ’d The air is delicate.

If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well It were done quickly; if the assassination Could trammel up the consequence, and catch With his surcease success; that but this blow Might be the be-all and the end-all here, But here, upon this bank and shoal of time, We’d jump the life to come.

Your face, my thane, is as a book where men May read strange matters.

Look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under ’t.

The raven himself is hoarse That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements. 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 visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between The effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts, And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers.

Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry, “Hold, hold!”

Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be What thou art promis’d. Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness 49 To catch the nearest way.

There’s no art To find the mind’s construction in the face: He was a gentleman on whom I built An absolute trust.

Nothing in his life Became him like the leaving it; he died As one that had been studied in his death To throw away the dearest thing he ow’d, As ’twere a careless trifle.

Come what come may, Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.

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

I am Thane of Cawdor: 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, Against the use of nature? Present fears Are less than horrible imaginings.

And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths, Win us with honest trifles, to betray ’s In deepest consequence.

As happy prologues to the swelling act Of the imperial theme.

The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, And these are of them.

Or have we eaten on the insane root That takes the reason prisoner?

If you can look into the seeds of time, And say which grain will grow and which will not, Speak.

And to be king Stands not within the prospect of belief.

The weird sisters, hand in hand, Posters of the sea and land, Thus do go about, about: Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine, And thrice again, to make up nine. Peace! The charm’s wound up.

So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

Dwindle, peak, and pine.

Sleep shall neither night nor day Hang upon his pent-house lid.

A sailor’s wife had chestnuts in her lap, And munch’d, and munch’d, and munch’d: “Give me,” quoth I: “Aroint thee, witch!” the rump-fed ronyon cries.

Banners flout the sky.

Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air.

First Witch: When shall we three meet again In thunder, lightning, or in rain? Second Witch: When the hurlyburly’s done, When the battle’s lost and won.

I am Misanthropos, and hate mankind.

Life’s uncertain voyage.

You fools of fortune, trencher-friends, time’s flies.

O! the fierce wretchedness that glory brings us.

Men shut their doors against a setting sun.

Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.

Immortal gods, I crave no pelf; I pray for no man but myself: Grant I may never prove so fond, To trust man on his oath or bond.

Here’s that which is too weak to be a sinner, Honest water, which ne’er left man i’ the mire. 48

I wonder men dare trust themselves with men.

I call the gods to witness.

The weight of this sad time we must obey; Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The oldest hath borne most: we that are young, Shall never see so much, nor live so long.