Macbeth Quotes

Macbeth

Two truths are told,

As happy prologues to the swelling act

Of the imperial theme.--I thank you, gentlemen.

Cannot be ill, cannot be good: if ill,

Why hath it given me earnest of success,

Commencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor:

Macbeth

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:

Macbeth

My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,

Shakes so my single state of man that function

Is smother'd in surmise, and nothing is

But what is not. If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me,

Without my stir.

Macbeth

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,

Macbeth

But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,

We'ld jump the life to come. But in these cases

We still have judgment here; that we but teach

Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return

To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice

Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice

To our own lips… 

Macbeth

He's here in double trust;

First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,

Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,

Who should against his murderer shut the door,

Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan

Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been

So clear in his great office, that his virtues

Macbeth

Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against

The deep damnation of his taking-off;

And pity, like a naked new-born babe,

Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed

Upon the sightless couriers of the air,

Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,

That tears shall drown the wind…

Macbeth

…I have no spur

To prick the sides of my intent, but only

Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself

And falls on the other.

Macbeth

Is this a dagger which I see before me,

The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible

To feeling as to sight? or art thou but

A dagger of the mind, a false creation,

Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

Macbeth

I see thee yet, in form as palpable As this which now I draw. Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going; And such an instrument I was to use. Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses, Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still, And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood, Which was not so before. There's no such thing: It is the bloody business which informs Thus to mine eyes…

macbeth

…Now o'er the one halfworld

Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse

The curtain'd sleep; witchcraft celebrates

Pale Hecate's offerings, and wither'd murder,

Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,

Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace.

With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design

Moves like a ghost…

Macbeth

…Thou sure and firm-set earth,

Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear

Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,

And take the present horror from the time,

Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives:

Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.

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.

Lady Macbeth

Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be

What thou art promised: yet do I fear thy nature;

It is too full o' the milk of human kindness

To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great;

Art not without ambition, but without

The illness should attend it: what thou wouldst highly,

Lady Macbeth

That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,

And yet wouldst wrongly win: thou'ldst have, great Glamis,

That which cries 'Thus thou must do, if thou have it;

And that which rather thou dost fear to do

Than wishest should be undone.'

Lady Macbeth

Hie thee hither,

That I may pour my spirits in thine ear;

And chastise with the valour of my tongue

All that impedes thee from the golden round,

Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem

To have thee crown'd withal…

Lady Macbeth

…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,

Lady Macbeth

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,

Wherever in your sightless substances

You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,

And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,

That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,

Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,

To cry 'Hold, hold!'

Lady Macbeth

Out, damned spot! out, I say!--One: two: why,

then, 'tis time to do't.--Hell is murky!--Fie, my

lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we

fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?--Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him…

Lady Macbeth

The thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now?--What, will these hands ne'er be clean?--No more o'that, my lord, no more o' that: you mar all with this starting…

Lady Macbeth

Here's the smell of the blood still: all the

perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little

hand. Oh, oh, oh!

Duncan

There's no art

To find the mind's construction in the face.

Macbeth

False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

Lady Macbeth

Your face, my thane, is as a book where men/ May read strange matters. To beguile the time,

Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,/ Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,/ But be the serpent under't.

Macbeth

Present him eminence, both with eye and tongue:/ Unsafe the while, that we/ Must lave our honours in these flattering streams,/ And make our faces vizards to our hearts,/ Disguising what they are.

Witches

Fair is foul, and foul is fair.

Macbeth

So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

Banquo

But 'tis strange:

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.

Macbeth

Prithee, peace:

I dare do all that may become a man;

Who dares do more is none.

Lady Macbeth

What beast was't, then,

That made you break this enterprise to me?

When you durst do it, then you were a man;

Macbeth

Bring forth men-children only;

For thy undaunted mettle should compose

Nothing but males.

Lady Macbeth

Are you a man?...O, these flaws and starts,

Impostors to true fear, would well become

A woman's story at a winter's fire,

Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself!

Macduff

O gentle lady,

'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak:/ The repetition, in a woman's ear,/ Would murder as it fell.

Ross

Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland/ Would create soldiers, make our women fight,/ To doff their dire distresses.

Lady Macbeth

…why then, alas,/ Do I put up that womanly defence,

To say I have done no harm?

Malcolm

Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there

Weep our sad bosoms empty.

Macduff

Let us rather

Hold fast the mortal sword, and like good men

Bestride our down-fall'n birthdom.

Malcolm

Dispute it like a man.

Macduff

I shall do so;

But I must also feel it as a man:

I cannot but remember such things were,

That were most precious to me. Did heaven look on,

And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,

They were all struck for thee! naught that I am,

Not for their own demerits, but for mine,

Fell slaughter on their souls. Heaven rest them now!

Malcolm

Be this the whetstone of your sword: let grief

Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.

Macduff

O, I could play the woman with mine eyes

And braggart with my tongue! But, gentle heavens,

Cut short all intermission; front to front

Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;

Within my sword's length set him; if he 'scape,

Heaven forgive him too!

Malcolm

This tune goes manly.

Ross

Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt:

He only lived but till he was a man;

The which no sooner had his prowess confirm'd

In the unshrinking station where he fought,

But like a man he died.

Macbeth

The thane of Cawdor lives: why do you dress me/ In borrow'd robes?

Banquo

New honors come upon him,/ Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould/ But with the aid of use.

Macduff

Let our old robes sit easier than our new!

Angus

…now does he feel his title / Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe

Upon a dwarfish thief.

Lennox

The night has been unruly: where we lay,

Our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say,

Lamentings heard i' the air; strange screams of death,/ And prophesying with accents terrible

Of dire combustion and confused events

New hatch'd to the woeful time: the obscure bird

Clamour'd the livelong night: some say, the earth

Was feverous and did shake.

Old man

Tis unnatural,/ Even like the deed that's done. On Tuesday last,/ A falcon, towering in her pride of place,/ Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd.

Ross

And Duncan's horses--a thing most strange and certain--/ Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race,/ Turn'd wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out,/ Contending 'gainst obedience, as they would make/ War with mankind.