Studying Shakespeare is something everybody will do, whether it is for their GCSEs, A-levels, or university degree. There is no denying that Macbeth is a staple of English classes in general. But knowing the best Macbeth quotes for your work is crucial, especially if you’re on a deadline.
Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies, full of drama and Scottish history. To help you with your studies, here are the best Macbeth quotes that you should learn.
1. “Fair is foul and foul is fair”
Who: The Witches
Where: Scene 1, Act 1
2. “What bloody man is that?”
Who: King Duncan
Where: Scene 2, Act 1
3. “If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not.”
Who: Banquo
Where: Scene 3, Act 1
4. Or have we eaten on the insane root that takes the reason prisoner?”
Who: Banquo
Where: Scene 3, Act 1
5. “What! Can the devil speak true?”
Who: Banquo
Where: Scene 3, Act 1
6. “Present fears are less than horrible imaginings.”
Who: King Duncan
Where: Scene 4, Act 1
7. “There’s daggers in men’s smiles.”
Who: Donalbain
Where: Scene 3, Act 2
8. “Double, double toil and trouble: Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.”
Who: The Witches
Where: Scene 1, Act 4
9. “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.”
Who: Second Witch
Where: Scene 1, Act 4
10. “Macbeth shall never vanquished be until Great Birnam wood to high Dusinane Hill shall come against him.”
Who: Third Apparition
Where: Scene 1, Act 4
11. “A deed without a name.”
Who: The Witches
Where: Scene 1, Act 4
12. “When our actions do not, our fears do make us traitors.”
Who: Lady Macduff
Where: Scene 2, Act 4
13. “Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee!”
Who: Lady Macduff
Where: Scene 3, Act 2
14. “The patient must minister to himself.”
Who: Doctor
Where: Scene 3, Act 5
15. “Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death.”
Who: Lady Macduff
Where: Scene 6, Act 5
Macbeth quotes from Macbeth himself:
If you’re in need of Macbeth quotes from the man himself, look no further…
16. “I have no spur, to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself and falls on the other”
Who: Macbeth
Where: Scene 7, Act 1
17. “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.”
Who: Macbeth
Where: Scene 2, Act 2
18. “Nothing is but what is not.”
Who: Macbeth
Where: Scene 3, Act 1
19. “Come what come may, time and the hour runs through the roughest day.”
Who: Macbeth
Where: Scene 3, Act 1
20. “False face must hide what the false heart doth know.”
Who: Macbeth
Where: Scene 7, Act 1
21. “Stars hide your fires; let not light see my dark and deep desires”
Who: Macbeth
Where: Scene 4, Act 1
22. “I dare do all that may become a man; who dares do more is none.”
Who: Macbeth
Where: Scene 7, Act 1
23. “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.”
Who: Macbeth
Where: Scene 1, Act 2
24. “I am in blood, steeped in so far, that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er”
Who: Macbeth
Where: Scene 4, Act 3
25. “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly.”
Who: Macbeth
Where: Scene 7, Act 1
26. “Methought I heard a voice cry, ‘Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep: the innocent sleep, sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care, the death of each day’s life, sore labor’s bath, balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, chief nourished in life’s feast.”
Who: Macbeth
Where: Scene 2, Act 2
27. “Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.”
Who: Macbeth
Where: Scene 2, Act 3
28. “Blood will have blood.”
Who: Macbeth
Where: Scene
29. “Thou sure and firm-set earth, hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear thy very stones prate of my whereabouts.”
Who: Macbeth
Where: Scene 1, Act 2
30. “How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags!”
Who: Macbeth
Where: Scene 1, Act 4
31. “To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, 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 strutsand 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.”
Who: Macbeth
Where: Scene 5, Act 5
32. “I bear a charmed life.”
Who: Macbeth
Where: Scene 8, Act 5
33. “The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon! Where gott’st thou that goose look?”
Who: Macbeth
Where: Scene 3, Act 5
Macbeth quotes by Lady Macbeth
Studying Macbeth? No problem, here are some of the best Macbeth quotes by Lady Macbeth herself.
34. “The raven himself is hoarse that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan under my battlements.”
Where: Scene 5, Act 1
35. “Yet do I fear thy nature; it is too full o’ the milk of human kindness.”
Where: Scene 5, Act 1
36. “O, never shall sun that morrow see! 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 the’ innocent flower, but be the serpent under ‘t. He that’s coming must be provide for: and you shall put this night’s great business into my dispatch, which shall to all our nights and days to come give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.”
Where: Scene 5, Act 1
37. “Would’st 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’ the’ adage?”
Where: Scene 7, Act 1
38. “Here’s the smell of blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand”
Where: Scene 1, Act 5
39. “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 visiting 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!””
Where: Scene 5, Act 1
40. “When thou durst do it, then you were a man”
Where: Scene 7, Act 1
41. “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.”
Where: Scene 7, Act 1
42. “I laid their daggers ready; he could not miss ’em. Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done’t.”
Where: Scene 2, Act 2
42. “Out! Damned spot! One, two – why, then ’tis time to don’t. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? – Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.”
Where: Scene 1, Act 5
43. “What’s done cannot be undone.”
Where: Scene 1, Act 5
Are there any of your favourite Macbeth quotes missing? Let us know in the comments.
