Macbeth Quote Analysis

Vocabulary flashcards for key quotes from Shakespeare's Macbeth, including speaker details, locations, key literary techniques, and core meaning.

“So foul and fair a day I have not seen.”

Act 1 Sc 3 — Macbeth | Techniques: Paradox, antithesis, alliteration | Meaning: Echoes the witches; moral order is already inverted.

“Stars, hide your fires; / Let not light see my black and deep desires.”

Act 1 Sc 4 — Macbeth | Techniques: Apostrophe, personification, light/dark imagery | Meaning: He wants to hide his ambition.

“Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself / And falls on th’ other.”

Act 1 Sc 7 — Macbeth | Techniques: Personification, metaphor | Meaning: Ambition destroys the one who has it.

“If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well / It were done quickly.”

Act 1 Sc 7 — Macbeth | Techniques: Repetition, euphemism | Meaning: He wants the murder over fast.

“Yet do I fear thy nature; / It is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness.”

Act 1 Sc 5 — Lady Macbeth | Techniques: Metaphor, alliteration | Meaning: She thinks Macbeth is too soft.

“Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here.”

Act 1 Sc 5 — Lady Macbeth | Techniques: Apostrophe, imperative, invocation | Meaning: She asks to be made cruel.

“Look like th’ innocent flower, / But be the serpent under’t.”

Act 1 Sc 5 — Lady Macbeth | Techniques: Antithesis, metaphor, biblical allusion | Meaning: Appearance vs reality; deceive outwardly.

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

Act 1 Sc 7 — Lady Macbeth | Techniques: Metaphor, imperative | Meaning: She manipulates him into murder.

“Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand?”

Act 2 Sc 1 — Macbeth | Techniques: Rhetorical question, hallucination, apostrophe | Meaning: Guilt and imagination before murder.

“Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep.”

Act 2 Sc 2 — Macbeth | Techniques: Metaphor, repetition, personification | Meaning: Murder destroys innocence and peace.

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

Act 2 Sc 2 — Macbeth | Techniques: Rhetorical question, hyperbole, allusion | Meaning: Guilt cannot be washed away.

“A little water clears us of this deed.”

Act 2 Sc 2 — Lady Macbeth | Techniques: Understatement, dramatic irony | Meaning: She thinks guilt is easy to remove.

“Out, damned spot! out, I say!”

Act 5 Sc 1 — Lady Macbeth | Techniques: Imperative, repetition, apostrophe | Meaning: Guilt resurfaces in her sleepwalking.

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

Act 5 Sc 1 — Lady Macbeth | Techniques: Hyperbole, contrast | Meaning: Guilt is permanent.

“Blood will have blood.”

Act 3 Sc 4 — Macbeth | Techniques: Aphorism, repetition, foreshadowing | Meaning: Violence returns on the violent.

“Double, double toil and trouble; / Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.”

Act 4 Sc 1 — Witches | Techniques: Rhyme, alliteration, chant, trochaic metre | Meaning: Pure witchcraft and evil.

“By the pricking of my thumbs, / Something wicked this way comes.”

Act 4 Sc 1 — Second Witch | Techniques: Rhyme, foreshadowing, alliteration | Meaning: Macbeth is now the wicked thing.

“Nothing is but what is not.”

Act 1 Sc 3 — Macbeth | Techniques: Paradox, antithesis, equivocation | Meaning: Moral confusion; nothing is certain.

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…”

Act 5 Sc 5 — Macbeth | Techniques: Repetition, personification of time | Meaning: Life feels endless and meaningless.

“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player…”

Act 5 Sc 5 — Macbeth | Techniques: Metaphor, metatheatre, alliteration | Meaning: Life is brief, fake, and pointless.