Macbeth Key Quotations

Captain describing Macbeth

O valiant cousin, worthy gentleman

Angus describing the old Thane of Cawdor

But treasons capital, confess'd and prov'd, / Have overthrown him

Duncan describing the old Thane of Cawdor

He was a gentleman on whom I built / An absolute trust (enter Macbeth)

Duncan describing Macbeth

O worthiest cousin

Lady Macbeth describing the entrance of Duncan

The raven himself is hoarse / That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan / Under my battlements

Lady Macbeth's pun about the sun

O never / Shall sun that morrow see

Macbeth describing Duncan in double trust and how he should not bear the knife

He's here in double trust... Who should against the murderer shut the door / Not bear the knife myself

Macbeth describing Duncan's virtues

his virtues / Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongu'd against / The deep damnation of his taking off

Banquo giving his sword to Fleance

Hold, take my sword... Give me my sword- / Who's there?

Macbeth's positive adjectives to describe Duncan

Who can be wise, amaz'd, temp'rate, and furious, / Loyal and neutral

Macbeth describing Duncan's blood

His silver skin lac'd with his golden blood / And his gash'd stabs

Macbeth's three questions to Banquo

Ride you this afternoon? ... Is't far you ride? ... Goes Fleance with you?

Banquo's three responses

Ay, my good lord...Ay, my good lord...My lord, I will not.

Macbeth telling Banquo not to fail the banquet

Fail not our feast. / My lord, I will not.

Banquo's last words to Fleance

O, treachery! / Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly!

Malcolm's negative adjectives to describe Macbeth

I grant him bloody, / Luxurious, avaricious...smacking of every sin / That has a name

Malcolm's positive adjectives

The king-becoming graces- / As justice, verity, temp'rance...

Macbeth's insults to his servants

Go prick thy face... Thou lily-liver'd boy... those linen cheeks of thine... whey-face

Macbeth describing how he could be crowned king without the need for regicide

If chance will have me king, why chance may crown me / Without my stir

Macbeth telling to stars to hide their fires

Stars, hide your fires, / Let not light see my black and deep desires

Lady Macbeth talking to spirits in her soliloquy

Come, you spirits...unsex me here...fill me from the crown to the toe topfull / Of direst cruelty...Stop up th'access and passage to remorse...take my milk of gall

Macbeth describing his vaulting ambition

Vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself / And falls on th'other

Macbeth describing his dagger hallucination

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

Macbeth's rhyming couplet to describe the death of Duncan

Here it not, Duncan, for it is a knell / That summons thee to heaven or to hell

Macbeth's rhyming couplet to describe the death of Banquo

Banquo, thy soul's flight, / If it find heaven, must find it out tonight

Banquo first being suspicious of Macbeth

Thou hast it now, King, Cawdor, Glamis, all... and I fear / Thou played'st most foully for't... But hush, no more

Witches asking when they'll meet again

When shall we three meet again? / In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

The witches' language of contradiction

Fair is foul, and foul is fair, / Hover through the fog and filthy air

Macbeth's first words upon entry

So foul and fair a day I have not seen

Witches' prophecy comparing Banquo and Macbeth

Lesser than Macbeth, and greater. Not so happy, yet much happier.

Macbeth talking about Banquo's ghost's locks

Thou canst not say I did it; never shake / Thy gory locks at me!

Hecate angry at the witches

How did you dare / To trade and traffic with Macbeth / In riddles and affairs of death?

The witches' brew

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

Macbeth talking to the witches afterwards

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

Witches' prophecy regarding Macduff

none of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth

Lady Macbeth trying to get out the blood in the sleepwalking scene

Out, damned spot! Out I say!

The Captain comparing animals

as sparrows, eagles, or the hare, the lion

Ross contrasting ideas of light

dark night strangles the travelling lamp

Lady Macbeth describing the crickets and owls

I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry

The Old Man describing the death of a falcoln

A falcoln...Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd

The Old Man describing the King's horses

And Duncan's horses...Turn'd wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out

Macbeth's scorpions

O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!

Macbeth commenting on the trees and stones

Stones have been known to move and trees to speak

Lady Macduff describing the state of the world

In this earthly world where to do harm / Is often laudable

Malcolm regarding Birnam Wood

Let every soldier hew him down a bough

Lady Macbeth on the flower and snake

look like th'innocent flower, / But be the serpent under't

Lady Macbeth telling Macbeth to leave it to her

Leave all the rest to me

Lady Macbeth: was the hope drunk...

Was the hope drunk / Wherein you dress'd yourself? ... so green and pale ... live a coward

Macbeth daring to do all that makes him a man

Prithee, peace, / I dare do all that may become a man

Lady Macbeth on the boneless gums

Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums / And dash'd the brains out

Lady Macbeth telling Macbeth to give her the daggers

Infirm of purpose! / Give me the daggers...I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal

Lady Macbeth suggesting only a bit of water is enough to cleanse them

A little water clears us of this deed

Macbeth on the false face and heart

False face must hide what the false heart doth know

Another of the similar sort regarding visards

And make our faces visards to our hearts

Macbeth shall sleep no more

Sleep no more: / Macbeth does murder sleep... Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care, / The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath

Macbeth on Neptune

Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?

Macduff on the country's blood

Bleed, bleed, poor country

Lady Macbeth on the perfumes of Arabia

Here's the smell of the blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia / will not sweeten this little hand. O,O,O.

Banquo's clothes metaphor for Macbeth

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

Banquo's connection to King Macbeth

Let your highness / Command upon me, to the which my duties / Are with a most indissoluble tie / Forever knit