Macbeth: Key Quotes

Witches (1.1)

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

Captain (1.2)

“Unseamed him from the nave to the chops.”

Duncan (1.2)

“O valiant cousin!”

Banquo (1.3)

“to win us to our harm / The instruments of darkness tell us truths.”

Macbeth (1.3)

“This supernatural soliciting / Cannot be ill – cannot be good.”

Macbeth (1.4)

“my black and deep desires.”

Lady Macbeth (1.5)

M is “too full o’ the milk of human kindness.”

Lady Macbeth (1.5)

“unsex me here”

Lady Macbeth (1.5)

“I feel now / The future in the instant.”

Lady Macbeth (1.5)

“Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it.”

Duncan (1.6)

“Our honoured hostess.”

Macbeth (1.7)

“Vaulting ambition, which overleaps itself.”

Lady Macbeth (1.7)

“Screw your courage to the sticking-place / And we’ll not fail.”

Lady Macbeth (1.7)

“When you durst do it, then you were a man.”

Macbeth (2.1)

“heat-oppressed brain”

Macbeth (2.1)

Duncan’s “virtues will plead like angels.”

Macbeth (2.2)

“Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?”

Lady Macbeth (2.2)

“A little water clears us of this deed.”

Macduff (2.3)

“Horror! Horror! Horror!”

Macbeth (2.3)

“His silver skin laced with his golden blood.”

Old Man (2.4)

“’Tis unnatural, / Even like the deed that’s done.”

Banquo (3.1)

“I fear / Thou play’dst most foully for it.”

Macbeth (3.1)

“a fruitless crown.”

Lady Macbeth (3.2–3.3)

“Tis safer to be that which we destroy, / Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.”

Macbeth (3.2–3.3)

“Full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife.”

Macbeth (3.2–3.3)

“Be innocent of the knowledge.”

Macbeth (3.4)

“I am cabin’d, cribb’d, confined, bound in / To saucy doubts and fears.”

Macbeth (3.4)

“Never shake / Thy gory locks at me.”

Macbeth (3.4)

“I am in blood / Stepped in so far”

Macbeth (4.1)

“How now, you secret, black and midnight hags!”

Macduff (4.3)

“an untitled tyrant bloody-sceptered.”

Macduff (4.3)

“I must also feel it like a man.”

Lady Macbeth (5.1)

“Out damned spot! … Hell is murky!”

Lady Macbeth (5.1)

“All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.”

Lady Macbeth (5.1)

“What’s done cannot be undone.”

Macbeth (5.5–5.7)

“She should have died hereafter.”

Macbeth (5.5–5.7)

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.”

Macbeth (5.5–5.7)

“Out, out, brief candle.”

Macduff (5.8)

“Behold the usurper’s cursed head.”

Malcolm (5.8)

“This dead butcher and his fiend-like queen.”