Plan = No Happiness (Macbeth Quotations)

"We fail!
But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we'll not fail.
When Duncan is asleep--" (Lady Macbeth, 43).

This quote show Lady Macbeth trying to convince Macbeth to kill Duncan and blame it on the guards. She tells him that they will not fail, because her plan is brilliant. This quote adds to the scene because it leads to Macbeth killing Duncan, an is the moment when Lady Macbeth fatally convinces him to carry through. She is not afraid to get caught in the crime as Macbeth is. This quote show that Lady Macbeth is more manly than Macbeth which is a reoccuring topic that Lady Macbeth addresses throughout the play. In the next quote, they realize that all this bloodshed hasn't led to happiness. Instead it buries them into a cycle of blood and killing that they cannot escape.


"Naught's had, all spent,
Where our desire is got without content.
'Tis safer to be that which we destroy
Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy" (Lady Macbeth, 93).

In this quotation Lady Macbeth is saying that though she is the queen and Macbeth is king, she is not happy. Originally, she thought that if Macbeth was king the would have everything they wanted and their problems would vanish. Instead they got their desire, but that desire didn't bring them happiness. In the last two lines, she says that it is safer to be dead like Duncan than to be held back by Duncan's death. This quote is important because it leads to the idea that Macbeth gets to kill Banquo and Fleance.  It represents the concept that knowledge is deadly.