Macbeth: Quotes

Act I Quotes

Fair is foul, and foul is fair. — Witches, 1.1.12

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, 1.3.125

Stars, hide your fires!
Let not light see my black and deep desires. — Macbeth, 1.4.52

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! Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall. — Lady Macbeth, 1.5.30

Look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under it. — Lady Macbeth, 1.5.56

I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself
And falls on the other. — Macbeth, 1.7.25

I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more, is none. — Macbeth, 1.7.47

Macbeth: If we should fail.
Lady Macbeth: We fail?
But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we’ll not fail. (1.7.58)

Act 2 Quotes

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. — Macbeth, 2.1.33

Methought I heard a voice cry, Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep, — the innocent sleep;
Sleep, that knits up the ravell’d 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, 2.2.36

Act 3 Quotes

Nought’s had, all’s spent
Where our desire is got without content. — Lady Macbeth, 3.2.7

I am in blood
Stepp’d in so far, that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o’er. — Macbeth, 3.4.142

Act 4 Quotes

By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes. — Witches, 4.4.44

Act 5 Quotes

Out, damned spot! out, I say! — Lady Macbeth, 5.1.34

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. — Macbeth, 5.5.19