| “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 the access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between The effect and it!” | Lady Macbeth |
| “Fair is foul, and foul is fair.” | Witches |
| Be bloody, bold, and resolute! Laugh to scorn the pow’r of man, for none of woman born shall harm Macbeth.” | Second Apparition |
| “To beguile the time, Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye, Your hand, your tongue; look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under’t.” | Lady Macbeth |
| “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.” | Banquo |
| “Fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,Showed like a rebel’s” | Captain |
| “If you can look into the seeds of time,And say which grain will grow, and which will not,Speak.” | Banquo |
| “And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,The instruments of darkness tell us truths,Win us with honest trifles, to betray’sIn deepest consequence.” | Banquo |
| If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me. | Macbeth |
| There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face. | Duncan |
| Nothing in his lifeBecame him like the leaving it; he diedAs one that had been studied in his death,To throw away the dearest thing he ow’d,As ’twere a careless trifle. | Malcolm |
| Stars, hide your fires!Let not light see my black and deep desires. | Macbeth |
| It is too full o’ the milk of human kindnessTo catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great; | Lady Macbeth |
| I have no spurTo prick the sides of my intent, but onlyVaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itselfAnd falls on the other. | Macbeth |
| I dare do all that may become a man;Who dares do more, is none. | Macbeth |
| Is this a dagger which I see before me,The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee; | Macbeth |
| When our actions do not,Our fears do make us traitors. | Lady Macduff |
| If it were done when ‘t is done, then ‘t were wellIt were done quickly: if the assassinationCould trammel up the consequence, and catchWith his surcease success; that but this blowMight be the be-all and the end-all here,But | Macbeth |
| “What he hath lost, noble Macbeth has won.” | Duncan |
| “So foul and fair a day I have not seen.” | Macbeth |
| 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!” | Witches |
| “Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.Not so happy, yet much happier.Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none” | Witches |
| “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.” | Banquo |
| “This castle hath a pleasant seat, the air/Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself/Unto our gentle senses.” | Duncan |
| “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere will/It were done quickly.” | Macbeth |
| “Away, and mock the time with fairest show./False face must hide what the false heart doth know.” | 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.” | 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.” | Macbeth |
| To know my deed, ’twere best not know myself./Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!” | Macbeth |
| I am one, my liege,Whom the vile blows and buffets of the worldHave so incensed that I am reckless whatI do to spite the world. | Murderer |
| “Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight/With a new Gorgon. Do not bid me speak./See, and then speak yourselves.” | Macduff |
| “Upon my head they place a fruitless crown/And put a barren scepter in my gripe.” | Macbeth |
| “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/ (Imposters to true fear) would well become/A woman’s story at a winter’s fire. . .” | Lady Macbeth |
| “The time has been/That, when the brains were out, the man would die,/And there an end! But now they rise again,/With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,/And push us from our stools. This is more strange/Than such a murder is.” | Macbeth |
| “I am in blood/Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,/Returning were as tedious as go o’er.” | Macbeth |
| “Come, we’ll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse/Is the initiate fear that wants hard use./We are yet but young in deed.” | Macbeth |
| “Beware the Thane of Fife. Dismiss me. Enough””Be bloody, bold, and resolute; laugh to scorn/The pow’r of man, for none of woman born/Shall harm Macbeth.””Macbeth shall never vanquished be until/Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill/Shall come against him.” | Apparitions |
| “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.” | Macbeth |
| “Out, damned spot! out, I say!” | Lady Macbeth |
| Whither should I fly?/I have done no harm. But I remember now/I am in this earthly world, where to do harm/Is often laudable, to do good sometime/Accounted dangerous folly. Why then, alas,/Do I put up that womanly defense/To say I have done no harm?—What are these faces?” | Lady Macduff |
| To Ireland, I; our separated fortuneShall keep us both the safer: where we are, | Donalbain |
| What will you do? Let’s not consort with them:To show an unfelt sorrow is an officeWhich the false man does easy. I’ll to England. | Malcolm |
| “I have lived long enough. My way of life/Is fallen into the sere | Macbeth |
| ” It is a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/Signifying nothing.” | Macbeth |
| 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. Either thou, Macbeth,/Or else my sword with an unbattered edge I sheathe again undeeded.” | Macduff |
| “Hail, King! for so thou art. Behold where stands/The usurper’s cursed head. The time is free.” | Macduff |
| All my pretty ones? Did you say all? O hell-kite! All? What, all my pretty chickens and their dam At one fell swoop? | Macduff |
| Macduff was from his mother’s womb Untimely ripp’d | Macduff |
| “angels are bright still, though the brightest fell. Through all things foul would wear thre brows of grace yet grace must still look good” | Malcolm |
| “be this the whetstone of your sword. Let grief convert to anger. Blunt not the heart; enrage it” | Malcolm |
Macbeth Quote Identification
July 16, 2019