| When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain? | First Witch |
| Fair is foul, and foul is fair. | All witches |
| For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name), disdaining fortune, with his brandished steel, which smoked like bloody execution, like valor’s minion, carved out his passage til he faced the slave. | Captain |
| TIl he unseamed him from the nave to th’ chops, and fixed his head upon our battlement. | Captain |
| O valiant cousin, worthy gentleman! | Duncan |
| What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won. | Duncan |
| A sailor’s wife had chestnuts in her lap and munched and munched and munched. “Give me,” Quoth I. | First Witch |
| Here I have a pilot’s thumb, wracked as homeward he did come. | First Witch |
| So foul and fair a day I have not seen. | Macbeth |
| You should be women, and yet your beards forbid me to interpret that you are so. | Banquo |
| Good sir, why do you start and seem to fear things that do sound so fair? | Banquo |
| Which outwardly you show? My noble partner you greet with present grace and great prediction of noble having and of royal hope, that he seems so rapt withal. To me you speak not. | Banquo |
| Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none. | Third Witch |
| By Sinel’s death I know I am Thane of Glamis | Macbeth |
| The king hath happily received Macbeth, the news of thy success, and, when he reads thy personal venture into the rebels’ fight, his wonders and his praises do contend which should be thine or his. | Ross |
| And for an earnest of a great honor, he bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor, in which addition, hail, most worthy thane, for it is thine. | Ross |
| The Thane of Cawdor lives. Why do you dress me in borrowed robes? | 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 |
| This supernatural soliciting cannot be il, cannot be good. | Macbeth |
| New honors upon him, like our strange garments, cleave not to their mold but with the aid of use. | Banquo |
| There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face. He was a gentleman on whom I built an absolute rush. | Duncan |
| The service and the loyalty I owe in doing it pays itself. Your Highness’ part is to receive our duties, and our duties are to your hrone and state children and servants, which do but hat they should by doing everything safe toward your love and honor. | Macbeth |
| We will establish our estate upon our eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafter he Prince of Cumberland. | Duncan |
| 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 dark and black desires. | Macbeth |
| What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness to cath the nearest way. | 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. | Lady Macbeth |
| Come to my woman’s breasts and take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers. | Lady Macbeth |
| Look like th’ innocent flower, but be the serpent under ‘t. | Lady Macbeth |
| This castle hath a pleasant seat. The air nimbly and sweetly recommends itself unto our gentle senses. | Duncan |
| Conduct me to mine host. We love him highly and shall continue our graces towards him. By your leave, hostess. | Duncan |
| He’s here in double trust; first as I am his kinsmen and his subject. | Macbeth |
| That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself and falls on th’ other- | Macbeth |
| We will proceed no further in this business. He hath honored me of late, and I have bouth golden opinions from all sorts of people, which would be worn now in their newest gloss, not cast aside so soon. | Macbeth |
| I dare do all that may become a man. Who dares do more is none. | Macbeth |
| We fail? But screw your courage to the sticking place and we’ll not fail. | Lady Macbeth |
| His two chamberlains will I with wine and wassail so convince that memory, the warder of the brain, shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason a limbeck only. | Lady Macbeth |
| Bring forth men-children only, for thy undaunted mettle should compose nothing but males. | Macbeth |
| False face must hide what the false heart doth. | Macbeth |
| I dreamt last night of the three Weird Sisters. To you they have showed some truth. | Banquo |
| Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. | Macbeth |
| 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 |
| I laid their daggers ready; he could not miss ’em. Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had don ‘t. | Lady Macbeth |
| But wherefore could I not pronounce “amen?” I had most need of blessing, and “amen” stuck in my throat. | Macbeth |
| Methought I heard a voice cry “sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep” | Macbeth |
| And wash this filthy witness from your hand. – why did you bring these daggers from the place? | Lady Macbeth |
| Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead are but as pictures. | Lady Macbeth |
| Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous sea incardine, making the green one red. | Macbeth |
| A little water clears us of this deed. | Lady Macbeth |
| Wake Duncan with thy knocking. I would thou couldst. | Macbeth |
| Knock, knock, knock! Who’s there, i’ th’ name of Beelzebub? | Porter |
| Faith, sir, we were carousing till the second cock, and drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things. | Porter |
| The night has been unruly. Where we lay, our chimneys were blown down and, as they say, lamenting heard i’ th’ air, strange screams of death | Lennox |
| Confusion now hath made his masterpiece. Most sacrilegious murder hath broken ope the Lord’s anointed temple and stole thene the life o’ th’ building | Macduff |
| Awake, awake! Ring the alarum bell – Murder and treason! Banquo and Donalbain, Malcolm, awake! | Macduff |
| Those of his chamber, as it seemed, had done ‘t. Their hands and faces were all badged with blood. So were their daggers, which unwiped we found upon their pillows. They stared and were distracted. | Lennox |
| O, yet I do repent me of my fury, that I did kill them. | Macbeth |
| Outrun the pauser, reason. Here lay Duncan, his silver skin laced with his golden blood | Macbeth |
| Help me hence, ho! | Lady Macbeth |
| Which the false man does easy. I’ll to England. | Malcolm |
| To Ireland I. Our separated fortune shall keep us both the safer. Where we are, there’s daggers in men’s smiles. The near in blood, the nearer bloody. | Donalbain |
| This murderous shaft that’s shot hath not yet lighted, and our safest way is to avoid the aim. | Malcolm |
| No, cousin, I’ll to Fife. | Macduff |
| Thou hast it now – King, Cawdor, Glamis, all as the Weird Women promised, and I fear thou played’st most foully for ‘t. | Banquo |
| Fail not our feast. | Macbeth |
| To be thus is nothing. But to be safely thus. Our fears in Banquo stick deep, and in his royalty of nature. | Macbeth |
| Then, prophet-like, they hailed him father to a line of kings. Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown. | Macbeth |
| No son of mine succeeding. If ‘t be so, for Banquo’s issue have I filed my mind; for them the gracious Duncan I have murdered. | Macbeth |
| I am one, my liege, whom the vile blows and buffets the world hath so incensed that I am reckless what I do to spite the world. | Murderer |
| And with him (to leave no rubs or blotches in the work) Fleance, his son, that keeps him company, whose absence is no less material to me than is his father’s, must embrace the fate of that dark hour. Resolve yourselves apart. | 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. | Lady Macbeth |
| What’s done is done. | Lady Macbeth |
| In the affliction of these terrible dreams that shake us nightly. Better be with the dead, | Macbeth |
| O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife! | Macbeth |
| Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, til thou applaud the deed. Come, seeling night, scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day | Macbeth |
| O treachery! Fly, god Fleance, fly, fly, fly! | Banquo |
| Most royal sir, Fleance is ‘scaped. | Murderer |
| Ay, my good lord. Safe in a ditch he bides, with twenty trenched gashes on his head. | Murderer |
| Thanks for that. There the grown serpent lies. The worm that’s fled hath nature that in time will venom breed, no teeth for th’ present. Get the gone. Tomorrow we’ll hear ourselves again. | Macbeth |
| Sit, worthy friends, my lord is often thus and hath been from his youth. Pray you, keep seat. | Lady Macbeth |
| Too terrible for the ear. 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 |
| Avaunt, and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee. Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold! | Macbeth |
| How say’st thou that Macduff denis his person at our great bidding? | Macbeth |
| There’s not a one of them but in his house I keep a servant fee’d. | Macbeth |
| 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. | Macbeth |
| We are but young in deed. | Macbeth. |
| Things have been strangely borne. The gracious Duncan was pitied of Macbeth; marry, he was dead. And the right valiant Banquo walked too late, whom you may say, if ‘t please you, Fleance killed, for Fleance fled. | Lennox |
| Double, double, toil and trouble; fire burn, and cauldron bubble. | All witches |
| Cool it with a babboon’s blood. Then the charm is firm and good. | Second Witch |
| By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes. | Second Witch |
| Beware Macduff! Beware the Thane of Fife! | First apparition |
| Be bloody, bold, and resolute. Laugh to scorn the power of man, for none born of woman born shall harm Macbeth. | Second apparition |
| Macbeth shall never vanquished be until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against him. | Third apparition |
| Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo. Down! Thy crown does sear mine eyeballs. | Macbeth |
| 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 | Macbeth |
| 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. No boasting like a fool. | Macbeth |
| His flight was madness. When our actions do not, our fears do make us traitors. | Lady Macduff |
| Wisdom? To leave his wifes, to leave his babes, his mansion and his titles in a place from whence himself does fly? | Lady Macduff |
| If he were dead, you’d weep for him. If you would not, it were a good sign that I should quickly have a new father. | Son of Lady Macduff |
| He has killed me, mother. | Son of Lady Macduff |
| I think our country sinks beneath the yoke, it weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash is added to her wounds. | Malcolm |
| It is myself I mean, in whom I know all the particulars of vice so grafted that, when they shall be opened, black Macbeth will seem as pure as snow | Malcolm |
| With this there grows in my most ill-composed affection such a stanchless avarice that, were I king, I should cut off the nobles for their lands, desire his jewels, and this other’s house | Malcolm |
| For strangers to my nature, I am yet unknown to woman, never was forsworn, scarcely have coveted what was mine own | Malcolm |
| Your castle is surprised, your wife and babes savagely slaughtered. | Ross |
| Wife, children, servants, all that could be found. | Ross |
| He has no children. 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 |
| The night is long that never finds the day. | Malcolm |
| Since his majesty went into the field, i have seen her rise from her bed, throw her nightgown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon ‘t, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed | Gentlewoman |
| Why it stood by her. She has light by her continually. ‘Tis her command. | Gentlewoman |
| Out, damned spot, out, I say! One, two! | Lady Macbeth |
| The Thane of FIfe had a wife. Where is she now? What, will these hands ne’er be clean? | Lady Macbeth |
| Here’s the smell of the blood still. Allt he perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. O, O, O! | Lady Macbeth |
| What’s done cannoot be undone. | 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. Remove from her the means of all annoyance and still keep eyes upon her. So, good night. | Doctor |
| Who then, shall blame his pestered senses to recoil and start when all that is within him does condemn itself for being there? | Menteith |
| Well, march we on. | Caithness |
| Let every soldier hew him down a bough and bear ‘t before him. | Malcolm |
| It is the cry of women, my good lord. | Seyton |
| The Queen, my lord, is dead. | Seyton |
| The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player t stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. | Macbeth |
| Of all men else I have avoided thee. But get thee back. My soul is too much charged with blood of thine already. | Macbeth |
| I bear a charmed life, which must not yield to one of woman born. | Macbeth |
| Despair thy charm, and let the angel whom thou stil hast served tell hee Macduff was from his mother’s womb untimely ripped. | Macduff |
| Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier’s debt. He only lived but till he was a man, | Ross |
| Why then, God’s soldier be he! Had I as many sons as I have hairs, I would nto wish them to a fairer death | Siward |
| And so, God be ith him. Here comes newer comfort | Siward |
| Hail, King! For so thou art. Behold where stands th’ usurper’s cused head. The time is free. | Macduff |
| So thanks to all at once and to each one, Whom we invite to see us crowned at Scone. | Malcolm |
Macbeth Quotes
July 20, 2019