The quote "Yet do I fear thy nature; it is too full o' the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way" is from which play by William Shakespeare?

The quote "Yet do I fear thy nature; it is too full o' the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way" is from the 17th century (1606) tragic play "Macbeth" by William Shakespeare. This quote is a soliloquy in Act 1, Scene 5. It is said by Lady Macbeth and is very important to the play.

Lady Macbeth is saying that in this situation her husband is too kind to kill the king. According to her, Macbeth (her husband) wants to be powerful. He has the ambition, but he doesn’t possess the type of nature required to take steps to gain the throne. He wants to do things like a good man; he doesn’t want to cheat. Yet he wants to obtain things that do not belong to him. He wholeheartedly wants the crown and throne, yet he is afraid to take appropriate actions required to achieve his goal.

Lady Macbeth will see to it that Macbeth gets what has been promised. She will bring him around to her way of thinking. Macbeth himself is not excessively and madly ambitious; he has no desire to kill Duncan ( King of Scotland) until Lady Macbeth plants the thought in him.

Macbeth's true tragic flaw, the force behind his ambition, is his gullibility, his willingness to trust the witches and his wife. By the end of the fourth scene, Macbeth is beginning to acknowledge the witches' words as truth.