Key quotes

Fair is foul, and foul is fair; / Hover through the fog and filthy air.

I have no spur / To prick the sides of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself / And falls on th' other

Look like th' innocent flower, / But be the serpent under 't.

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.

Stars, hide your fires; / Let not light see my black and deep desires.

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.

Out, damned spot, out, I say!

Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.

Yet do I fear thy nature; / It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness / To catch the nearest way.

When you durst do it, then you were a man; / And to be more than what you were, you would / Be so much more the man.

For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name), / Disdaining Fortune, with his brandished steel, / Which smoked with bloody execution, / Like Valor's minion, carved out his passage / Till he faced the slave

Of this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen / (Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands, / Took off her life)

I am in blood / Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o'er.

A little water clears us of this deed. / How easy is it, then!

It is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.

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.

There's no art / To find the mind's construction in the face.

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.

To be thus is nothing, / But to be safely thus.

Methought I heard a voice cry “Sleep no more! / Macbeth does murder sleep”

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.

Are you a man?

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!

Prithee, peace. / I dare do all that may become a man. / Who dares do more is none.

Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, / Till thou applaud the deed.

Thou hast it now: king, Cawdor, Glamis, all / As the Weïrd Women promised, and I fear / Thou played'st most foully for 't.

Be bloody, bold, and resolute. Laugh to scorn / The power of man, for none of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth.

Thou canst not say I did it. Never shake / Thy gory locks at me.

I shall do so, / But I must also feel it as a man.

Despair thy charm, / And let the angel whom thou still hast served / Tell thee Macduff was from his mother's womb / Untimely ripped.

Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown / And put a barren scepter in my grip, / Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand, / No son of mine succeeding.

Now does he feel his title / Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe / Upon a dwarfish thief.

Confusion now hath made his masterpiece. / Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope / The Lord's anointed temple and stole thence / The life o' th' building.

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.

Lesser than Macbeth and greater. / Not so happy, yet much happier. / Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.

I have lived long enough. My way of life / Is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf

I think our country sinks beneath the yoke. / It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash / Is added to her wounds.

But I have none. The king-becoming graces, / As justice, verity, temp'rance, stableness, / Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness, / Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude, / I have no relish of them but abound / In the division of each several crime, / Acting it many ways.

Hail, King! for so thou art. Behold where stands / Th' usurper's cursèd head. The time is free.

So I lose none / In seeking to augment it, but still keep / My bosom franchised and allegiance clear, / I shall be counseled.