Macbeth Quotes

Front 1

And Fortune, on his damnèd quarrel smiling, Show'd like a rebel's whore. But all's too weak; For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name) Disdaining Fortune, with his brandished steel, Which smoked with bloody execution

Back 1

Speaker: Captain

Act 1

Front 2

Look, how our partner's rapt.

Back 2

Speaker: Banquo

Act 1

Front 3

My noble partner

You greet with present grace and great prediction

Of noble having and of royal hope,

That he seems rapt withal. To me you speak not.

If you can look into the seeds of time,

And say which grain will grow and which will not,

Speak, then, to me, who neither beg nor fear

Your favors nor your hate.

Back 3

Speaker: Banquo

Act 1

Front 4

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.

Back 4

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 1

Front 5

The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step

On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap,

For in my way it lies. 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.

Back 5

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 1

Front 6

If good, why do I yield to that suggestion

Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair

And make my seated heart knock at my ribsAgainst the use of nature? Present fears

Are less than horrible imaginings.

My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,

Shakes so my single state of man

That function is smothered in surmise

And nothing is but what is not.

Back 6

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 1

Front 7

My plenteous joys,

Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves

In drops of sorrow.—Sons, kinsmen, thanes,

And you whose places are the nearest, know

We will establish our estate upon

Our eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafterThe Prince of Cumberland; which honor must

Not unaccompanied invest him only,

But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine

On all deservers.—From hence to Inverness

And bind us further to you.

Back 7

Speaker: Duncan

Act 1

Front 8

Fair is foul, and foul is fair;

Hover through the fog and filthy air.

Back 8

Speaker: Three Witches

Act 1

Front 9

So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

Back 9

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 1

Front 10

There's no art

To find the mind's construction in the face.

He was a gentleman on whom I built

An absolute trust.

Back 10

Speaker: Duncan

Act 1

Front 11

You should be women,

And yet your beards forbid me to interpret

That you are so.

Back 11

Speaker: Banquo

Act 1

Front 12

I'll drain him dry as hay.

Sleep shall neither night nor day

Hang upon his penthouse lid.

He shall live a man forbid.

Weary sev'nnights, nine times nine,

Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine.

Though his bark cannot be lost,

Yet it shall be tempest-tossed.

Back 12

Speaker: First Witch

Act 1

Front 13

Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be

What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature;

It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness

To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great,

Art not without ambition, but without

The illness should attend it.

Back 13

Speaker: Lady Macbeth

Act 1

Front 14

If chance will have me king, why, chance may

crown me,

Without my stir.

Back 14

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 1

Front 15

The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step

On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap,

For in my way it lies. 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.

Back 15

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 1

Front 16

Prithee, peace:

I dare do all that may become a man;

Who dares do more is none.

Back 16

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 1

Front 17

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?

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.

Back 17

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 2

Front 18

If't be so,

For Banquo's issue have I filed my mind,

For them the gracious Duncan have I murdered,

Put rancors in the vessel of my peace

Only for them, and mine eternal jewel

Given to the common enemy of man,

To make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings.

Rather than so, come fate into the list,

And champion me to th' utterance!

Back 18

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 3

Front 19

That will never be.

Who can impress the forest, bid the tree

Unfix his earthbound root? Sweet bodements, good!

Rebellious head, rise never till the Wood

Of Birnam rise, and our high-placed Macbeth

Shall live the lease of nature, pay his breath

To time and mortal custom.

Back 19

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 4

Front 20

I have no spur

To prick the sides of my intent, but only

Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself

And falls on the other—

Back 20

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 1

Front 21

'Gainst nature still!

Thriftless ambition, that will ravin up

Thine own lives' means! Then 'tis most like

The sovereignty will fall upon Macbeth.

Back 21

Speaker: Ross

Act 2

Front 22

Thou hast it now—king, Cawdor, Glamis, all,

As the weird women promised, and I fear

Thou played'st most foully for't. Yet it was said

It should not stand in thy posterity,

But that myself should be the root and father

Of many kings. If there come truth from them

(As upon thee, Macbeth, their speeches shine)

Why, by the verities on thee made good,

May they not be my oracles as well,

And set me up in hope? But hush, no more.

Back 22

Speaker: Banquo

Act 3

Front 23

For mine own good

All causes shall give way. I am in blood

Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,

Returning were as tedious as go o'er.

Back 23

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 3

Front 24

Either thou, Macbeth,

Or else my sword, with an unbattered edge,

I sheathe again undeeded. There thou shouldst be;

By this great clatter, one of greatest note

Seems bruited. Let me find him, Fortune,

And more I beg not.

Back 24

Speaker: Macduff

Act 5

Front 25

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.

Back 25

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 5

Front 26

Besides, this Duncan

Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been

So clear in his great office, that his virtues

Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against

The deep damnation of his taking-off;

Back 26

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 1

Front 27

Knock, knock! Who's there, in th'other devil's name? Faith, here's an equivocator that could swear in both the scales against either scale; who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven. O, come in, equivocator.

Back 27

Speaker: Porter

Act 2

Front 28

Ha, good father,

Thou seest, the heavens, as troubled with man's act,

Threaten his bloody stage. By th' clock, 'tis day,

And yet dark night strangles the traveling lamp.

Is't night's predominance or the day's shame

That darkness does the face of earth entomb

When living light should kiss it?

Back 28

Speaker: Ross

Act 2

Front 29

That, by the help of these (with Him above

To ratify the work), we may again

Give to our tables meat, sleep to our nights,

Free from our feasts and banquets bloody knives,

Do faithful homage and receive free honors.

All which we pine for now: and this report

Hath so exasperate the king that he

Prepares for some attempt of war.

Back 29

Speaker: Lord

Act 3

Front 30

Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo. Down!

Thy crown does sear mine eyeballs. And thy hair,

Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first.

A third is like the former.—Filthy hags!

Why do you show me this?—A fourth? Start, eyes!

What, will the line stretch out to th' crack of doom?

Another yet? A seventh? I'll see no more.

And yet the eighth appears who bears a glass

Which shows me many more, and some I see

That two-fold balls and treble scepters carry.

Horrible sight! Now I see 'tis true,

For the blood-boltered Banquo smiles upon me,

And points at them for his.

Back 30

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 4

Front 31

'Tis call'd the evil:

A most miraculous work in this good king,

Which often, since my here-remain in England

I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven

Himself best knows, but strangely visited people

All swoll'n and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,

The mere despair of surgery, he cures,

Hanging a golden stamp about their necks,

Put on with holy prayers: and 'tis spoken,

To the succeeding royalty he leaves

The healing benediction. With this strange virtue,

He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy,

And sundry blessings hang about his throne

That speak him full of grace.

Back 31

Speaker: Malcolm

Act 4

Front 32

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 th' innocent flower,

But be the serpent under't.

Back 32

Speaker: Lady Macbeth

Act 1

Front 33

See, see, our honour'd hostess!—

The love that follows us sometime is our trouble,

Which still we thank as love.

[…] Fair and noble hostess,

We are your guest to-night.

Back 33

Speaker: Duncan

Act 1

Front 34

I am settled and bend up

Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.

Away, and mock the time with fairest show.

False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

Back 34

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 1

Front 35

O, proper stuff!

This is the very painting of your fear.

This is the air-drawn dagger which you said

Led you to Duncan. 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!

Why do you make such faces? When all's done,

You look but on a stool.

Back 35

Speaker: Lady Macbeth

Act 3

Front 36

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. Come to my woman's breasts,

And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring 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!"

Back 36

Speaker: Lady Macbeth

Act 1

Front 37

Was the hope drunk

Wherein you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since?And wakes it now, to look so green and pale

At what it did so freely? From this time

Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard

To be the same in thine own act and valor

As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that

Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,

And live a coward in thine own esteem,

Letting "I dare not" wait upon "I would,"

Like the poor cat i' th' adage?

Back 37

Speaker: Lady Macbeth

Act 1

Front 38

I have given suck, and know

How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me.

I would, while it was smiling in my face,

Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums

And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you

Have done to this.

Back 38

Speaker: Lady Macbeth

Act 1

Front 39

Bring forth men-children only,

For thy undaunted mettle should compose

Nothing but males.

Back 39

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 1

Front 40

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.

Back 40

Speaker: Macduff

Act 2

Front 41

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.

Back 41

Speaker: Macduff

Act 4

(This takes place just after Macduff hears that his family has been slaughtered)

Front 42

Were such things here as we do speak about?

Or have we eaten on the insane root

That takes the reason prisoner?

Back 42

Speaker: Banquo

Act 1

Front 43

There's comfort yet; they are assailable.

Then be thou jocund. Ere the bat hath flown

His cloister'd flight, ere to black Hecate's summons

The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums

Hath rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done

A deed of dreadful note.

Back 43

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 3

Front 44

Have I not reason, beldams as you are?

Saucy and overbold, how did you dare

To trade and traffic with Macbeth

In riddles and affairs of death,

And I, the mistress of your charms,

The close contriver of all harms,

Was never call'd to bear my part,

Or show the glory of our art?

And which is worse, all you have done

Hath been but for a wayward son,

Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do,

Loves for his own ends, not for you.

Back 44

Speaker: Hecate

Act 3

Front 45

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Back 45

Speaker: Three Witches

Act 4

Front 46

What bloody man is that? He can report,

As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt

The newest state.

Back 46

Speaker: Duncan

Act 1

Front 47

Doubtful it stood,

As two spent swimmers that do cling together

And choke their art.

Back 47

Speaker: Captain

Act 1

(Speaking of the battle at the beginning)

Front 48

Disdaining fortune, with his brandish'd steel,

Which smoked with bloody execution,

Like valor's minion carved out his passage

Till he faced the slave;

Which ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,

Till he unseamed him from the nave to th' chops,

And fixed his head upon our battlements.

Back 48

Speaker: Captain

Act 1

Front 49

So well thy words become thee as thy wounds:

They smack of honor both.

Back 49

Speaker: Duncan

Act 1

Front 50

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:

The castle of Macduff I will surprise,

Seize upon Fife, give to th' edge o' th' sword

His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls

That trace him in his line.

Back 50

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 4

Front 51

Let us rather

Hold fast the mortal sword and, like good men,

Bestride our downfall'n birthdom. Each new morn

New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows

Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds

As if it felt with Scotland, and yell'd out

Like syllable of dolor.

Back 51

Speaker: Macduff

Act 4

Front 52

Why then, God's soldier be he!

Had I as many sons as I have hairs,

I would not wish them to a fairer death;

And so, his knell is knolled.

Back 52

Speaker: Siward

Act 5

Front 53

Come what come may,

Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.

Back 53

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 1

Front 54

Thy letters have transported me beyond

This ignorant present, and I feel now

The future in the instant.

Back 54

Speaker: Lady Macbeth

Act 1

Front 55

If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well

It were done quickly. If th' assassination

Could trammel up the consequence and catchWith his surcease success, that but this blow

Might be the be-all and the end-all here,

But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,

We'd jump the life to come.

Back 55

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 1

Front 56

Hang out our banners on the outward walls.

The cry is still "They come!" Our castle's strength

Will laugh a siege to scorn. Here let them lie

Till famine and the ague eat them up.

Were they not forced with those that should be ours,

We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,

And beat them backward home.

Back 56

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 5

Front 57

Boundless intemperance

In nature is a tyranny. It hath been

The untimely emptying of the happy throne

And fall of many kings.

Back 57

Speaker: Macduff

Act 4

Front 58

Hail, King! for so thou art. Behold, where stands

Th' usurper's cursèd head. The time is free.

I see thee compassed with thy kingdom's pearl,

That speak my salutation in their minds,

Whose voices I desire aloud with mine.

Hail, King of Scotland!

Back 58

Speaker: Macduff

Act 5

Front 59

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.

Back 59

Speaker: Banquo

Act 1

Front 60

Nothing in his life

Became him like the leaving it.

Back 60

Speaker: Malcolm

Act 1

(Speaking of the treasonous Thane of Cawdor, whom Macbeth replaces)

Front 61

Thou art so far before

That swiftest wing of recompense is slow

To overtake thee. Would thou hads less deserved,

That the proportion both of thanks and payment

Might have been mine. Only I have left to say,

'More is thy due than more than all can pay'.

Back 61

Speaker: Duncan

Act 1

(Speaking to Macbeth about his glories in battle, etc.)

Front 62

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 crowned withal.

Back 62

Speaker: Lady Macbeth

Act 1

Front 63

But in these cases

We still have judgement here, that we but teach

Bloody instructions which, being taught, return To plague th'inventor. This even-handed justice

Commends th'ingredience of our poisoned chalice

To our own lips.

Back 63

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 1

(Thinking about killing Duncan - in the middle of the speech that starts, "If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well / It were done quickly.")

Front 64

That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold.

What hath quenched them hath given me fire.

Back 64

Speaker: Lady Macbeth

Act 2

Front 65

the innocent sleep,

Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care,

The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,

Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,

Back 65

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 2

Front 66

Infirm of purpose!

Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead

Are but as pictures. 'Tis the eye of childhood

That fears a painted devil.

Back 66

Speaker: Lady Macbeth

Act 2

Front 67

To know my deed 'twere best not know myself.

Back 67

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 2

Front 68

Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit,

And look on death itself.

Back 68

Speaker: Macduff

Act 2

Front 69

Had I but died an hour before this chance

I had lived a blessèd time, for from this instant

There's nothing serious in mortality.

Back 69

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 2

Front 70

To show an unfelt sorrow is an office

Which the false man does easy.

Back 70

Speaker: Malcolm

Act 2

Front 71

God's benison go with you, and with those

That would make good of bad, and friends of foes.

Back 71

Speaker: Old Man

Act 3

(Compare with "Fair is foul and foul is fair")

Front 72

To be thus is nothing

But to be safely thus.

Back 72

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 3

("Thus" refers to being king - think of this in relation to Duncan, whom Macbeth murdered. He is thinking of his own safety because he saw how easily he took the former king's life)

Front 73

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.

Back 73

Speaker: Lady Macbeth

Act 3

Front 74

There the grown serpent lies. The worm that's fled

Hath nature that in time will venom breed,

No teeth for th'present.

Back 74

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 3

Front 75

He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear

His hopes 'bove wisdom, grace, and fear;

And you all know security

Is mortals' chiefest enemy.

Back 75

Speaker: Hecate

Act 3

Front 76

Time, thou anticipat'st my dread exploits.

The flighty purpose never is o'ertook

Unless the deed go with it.

Back 76

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 4

Front 77

Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell.

Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace,

Yet grace must still look so.

Back 77

Speaker: Malcolm

Act 4

(foul is fair, but fair is not foul?)

Front 78

What, man, ne'er pull your hat upon your brows.

Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak

Whispers the o'erfraught heart and bids it break.

Back 78

Speaker: Malcolm

Act 4

Front 79

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.

Back 79

Speaker: Doctor

Act 5

Front 80

Throw physic to the dogs; I'll none of it.

Back 80

Speaker: Macbeth

Act 5

(speaking to the Doctor because he says that he can't help Lady Macbeth with medicine)