Macbeth Quotes

And fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling/ showed like a rebel's whor-e,
But all's too weak/ for brave Macbeth well he deserves that name, Disdaining Fortune, with his brandished steel,/ Which smoked with bloody execution, Like Valor's minion, carved out his passage Till he faced the slave;
1.2.17-22

Captain

What he hath lost noble Macbeth hath won
1.2.78

Duncan

All hail Macbeth! Hail to thee thane of Glamis
All hail Macbeth! Hail to thee thane of Cawdor
All hail Macbeth that shalt be king hereafter
1.3.51-53

The witches

Might yet enkindle you unto the crown, Besides the Thane of Cawdor. 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.— Cousins, a word, I pray you.
1.3.132-138

Banquo

This supernatural soliciting 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. 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?
1.3.143-150

Macbeth

There's no art/ to find a man's construction in the face
1.4.13-14

Duncan

Stars, hide your fires/ Let not light see my black and deep desires/ the eye wink at the hand, yet let that be/ which the eye fears, when it is done, to see
1.4.57-60

Macbeth

True, worthy Banquo. He is full so valiant, And in his commendations I am fed: It is a banquet to me.—Let's after him, Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome. It is a peerless kinsman.
1.4.61-65

Duncan

What thou art promised. Yet I do fear thy nature/ It is too full of the milk of human kindness
1.5.16-20

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 th' access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between Th' effect and it.
1.5.47-54

Lady Macbeth

Bear welcome in your eye. Your hand, your tounge. Look like the innocent flower
1.5.76-77

Lady Macbeth

I have no spur/ to prick the sides of my intent, but only/vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself/ and falls on th' other
1.7.25-28

Macbeth

That made you break this enterprise to me? When you durst do it, then you were a man; And to be more than what you were, you would Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place Did then adhere, and yet you would make both. They have made themselves, and that their fitness now
1.7.56-61

Lady Macbeth

Away, and mock me with fairest show./ False face must hide what the false heart doth/ know
1.7.94-95

Macbeth

A heavy summons lie like lead upon me/ and yet I would not sleep. Merciful powers/ restrain in me the cursed thought that nature/ gives way to repose
2.1.8-11

Banquo

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-oppressèd brain? I see thee yet, in form as palpable As this which now I draw. Thou marshal'st me the way that I was going,/ And such an instrument I was to use. Mine eyes are made the fools o' th' 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. Now o'er the one-half world Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse The curtained sleep. Witchcraft celebrates Pale Hecate's off'rings, and withered murder, ...
2.1.44-77

... Alarumed 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. Thou ⌜sure⌝ and firm-set earth,/ Hear not my steps, which ⌜way they⌝ walk, for fear Thy very stones prate of my whereabouts 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.

Macbeth

That which hath made them drunk hath made me/ bold/ What hath quenched them hath given me fire. Hark! Peace
2.2.1-4

Lady Macbeth

He could not miss' em/ Had he not resembled/ my father as he slept, I had done't
2.2.16-17

Lady Macbeth

Methought I heard a voice cry "Sleep no more!/ Macbeth does murder sleep"—the innocent sleep,/ Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care,/ The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,/ Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,/ Chief nourisher in life's feast.
2.2.47-52

Macbeth

Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood/ Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather/ The multitudinous seas incarnadine,/ Making the green one red.
2.2.78-81

Macbeth

A little water clears us of this deed/ How easy is it, then!
2.2.86-87

Lady Macbeth

Confusion hath made his masterpiece/ Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope/ The Lord's anointed temple and stole thence/ The life o' th' building
2.3.76-79

Macduff

Thou hast it now--king, Cawdor, Glamis, all/As the weird women promised, and I fear/ thou played most foully for it
3.1.1-3

Banquo

But that myself should be the root and father/ Of many kings. If there come truth from them
3.1.5-6

Banquo

They hailed him father to a line of kings/ Upon my head placed a fruitless crown/ And placed a fruitless scepter in my grip/ Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand,/ No son of mine succeeding
3.1.65-69

Macbeth

Naught's had, all's spent/ Where our desire is got without content/ 'Tis safer to be that which we destroy/ Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy
3.2.6-9

Lady Macbeth

We have scorched the snake, not killed it./ She'll close and be herself whilst our poor malice/ Remains in danger of her former tooth./ But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer,/ Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep/ In the affliction of these terrible dreams/ That shake us nightly. Better be with the dead,/ Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,/ Than on the torture of the mind to lie/ In restless ecstasy.
3.2.15-25

Macbeth

Come on, gentle my lord,/ Sleek o'er your rugged looks. Be bright and jovial/ Among your guests tonight
3.2.30-32

Lady Macbeth

It will have blood, they say, blood will have blood
3.4.151

Macbeth (after seeing the ghost of Banquo)

I am in blood/ Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more/ returning were as tedious as go o'er/ Strange things I have in head that will to hand/ Which must be acted ere they may be scanned
3.4.168-172

Macbeth

Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! Beware Macduff! Beware the thane of Fife! Dismiss me, enough
4.1.81-82

First Apparition

Laugh to scorn the power of man, for non of woman born/ Shall harm Macbeth
4.1.91-92

Second Apparition

Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care/ Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are./ Macbeth shall never vanquished be until/ Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill/ Shall come against him.
4.1.103-107

Third Apparition

Unless the deed go with it. From this moment/ The very firstlings of my heart shall be/ The firstlings of my hand. And even now,/ To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and/ done
4.1.166-170

Macbeth

All is the fear, and nothing is the love/ As little is the wisdom, where the flight/ So runs against all reason
4.2.14-16

Lady Macduff

Bleed, bleed, poor country!/ Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure,/ For goodness dare not check thee./ Wear thou thy wrongs;
4.3.39-42

Macduff

That, when they shall be opened, black Macbeth/ Will seem as pure as snow, and the poor state/ Esteem him as a lamb, being compared/ with my confineless harms
4.3.63-66

Malcolm (testing Macduff by emphasizing how "bad" of a king he would be)

Boundless intemperance/ in nature is a tyranny. In hath been/ Th' untimely emptying of the happy thrown/ And the fall of many kings.
4.3.80-83

Macduff

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.
4.3.264-267

Macduff

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?
5.1.37-42

Lady Macbeth

Foul whisp'rings are abroad. Unnatural deeds Do breed unnatural troubles. Infected minds To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets. More needs she the divine than the physician. God, God forgive us all. Look after her.
5.1.75-79

Doctor

Bring me no more reports. Let them fly all/ Till Birnam Wood remove to Dunsinane/ I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm?
5.3.1-3

Macbeth

I have lived long enough. My way of life/ Is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf, And that which should accompany old age,/ As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,/ I must not look to have, but in their stead/ Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honor.
5.3.26-31

Macbeth

Let every soldier hew him down a bough/ And bear't before him. Thereby shall we shadow/ The numbers of our host and make discovery/ Err in report of us
5.4.6-9

Malcolm

I have almost forgot the taste of fears. The time has been my senses would have cooled/ To hear a night-shriek, and my fell of hair/ Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir/ As life were in 't. I have supped full with horrors./ Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,/ Cannot once start me.
5.5.11-17

Macbeth

She should have died hereafter./ There would have been a time for such a word. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow/ Creeps in this petty pace from day to day/ To the last syllable of recorded time,/ And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!/ Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player/ That struts and frets his hour upon the stage/ And then is heard no more. It is a tale/ Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/ Signifying nothing.
5.5.20-31

Macbeth

They have tied me to a stake, I cannot fly/ But bear-like I must fight the course. What's he/ that was not born of a woman? Such a one/ Am I to fear, or none
5.7.1-4

Macbeth

That way the noise is. Tyrant, show thy face!/ If thou beest slain, and with no stroke of mine,/ My wife and children's ghosts will haunt me still./ I cannot strike at wretched kerns, whose arms/ Are hired to bear their staves.
5.7.19-23

Macduff

Speaker 1: I have no words; My voice is in my sword, thou bloodier villain/ Than terms can give thee out.

Speaker 2: Thou losest labor. As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air/ With thy keen sword impress as make me bleed. Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;/ I bear a charmèd life, which must not yield/ To one of woman born.

Speaker 1: Despair thy charm,/ And let the angel whom thou still hast served/ Tell thee Macduff was from his mother's womb/ Untimely ripped.
(5.8.8-20)

Macduff, Macbeth

I will not yield To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet And to be baited with the rabble's curse./ Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane/ And thou opposed, being of no woman born,/ Yet I will try the last. Before my body/ I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff,/ And damned be him that first cries "Hold! Enough!"
5.8.32-39

Macbeth

We will perform in measure, time, and place./ So thanks to all at once and to each one,/ Whom we invite to see us crowned at Scone
5.8.86-88

Malcolm