APAD: Milk of human kindness

Meaning:

  Care and compassion for others.

 

Background:

  From Shakespeare's Macbeth, 1605:

 

     "Yet doe I feare thy Nature, It is too full o' th' Milke of humane kindnesse."

 

- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

What's to be feared of one's compassion for others? I looked it up and found

    'I do fear thy nature, / It is too full o'th'milk of human kindness / To

    catch the nearest way. ' (1,5) Lady Macbeth is worried that Macbeth is too

    good and soft-hearted to take action to get the crown.

 

Now that makes sense.