Macbeth Key Quotes

THEME OF FATE AND FREE WILL

" ... brave Macbeth ... // Disdaining Fortune, with his brandished steel, // Which smoked with bloody execution"
ACT 1 SCENE 2

"All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!"
ACT 1 SCENE 3

"Look, how our partner's rapt"
ACT 1 SCENE 3 (Banquo about Macbeth)

"If chance will have me king, why, chance may // crown me "
ACT 1 SCENE 3

"I dare do all that may become a man"
ACT 1 SCENE 7 (Macbeth to Lady Macbeth)

"Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation"
ACT 2 SCENE 1 (Macbeth)

"Macbeth shall never vanquished be until
Great Birnam Wood...//Shall come against him."
ACT 4 SCENE 1 (the witches)

THEME OF AMBITION

"If you can look into the seeds of time,
And say which grain will grow and which will not, // Speak, then, to me"
ACT 1 SCENE 3 (Banquo)

"My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical"
ACT 1 SCENE 3 (Macbeth)

"Stars, hide your fires; // Let not light see my black and deep desires"
ACT 1 SCENE 4 (Macbeth)

" Look like th' innocent flower, // But be the serpent under ’t."
ACT 1 SCENE 5 (Lady Macbeth)

"Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness"
ACT 1 SCENE 5 (Lady Macbeth)

" I have no spur // To prick the sides of my intent, but only // Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself // And falls on the other"
ACT 1 SCENE 7 (Macbeth)

"'Gainst nature still! // Thriftless ambition,"
ACT 2 SCENE 4 (Ross)

"Let me find him, Fortune, // And more I beg not"
ACT 5 SCENE 6 (Macduff)

"It is a tale // Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, // Signifying nothing."
ACT 5 SCENE 5 (Macbeth)

THEME OF POWER

"Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair// And make my seated heart knock at my ribs // Against the use of nature?"
ACT 1 SCENE 3 (Macbeth)

"The deep damnation of his taking-off...// pity, like a naked newborn babe...// Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, // That tears shall drown the wind."
ACT 1 SCENE 7

"A falcon ... // Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed."
"Duncan’s horses ... // Turned wild in nature ... // Make war with mankind."
ACT 2 SCENE 4

"dead butcher and his fiend-like queen"
ACT 5 SCENE 8

THEME OF MADNESS AND REALITY

"Fair is foul, and foul is fair; // Hover through the fog and filthy air."
ACT 1 SCENE 1

"So foul and fair a day I have not seen."
ACT 1 SCENE 3 (Macbeth)

"Fair and noble hostess"
ACT 1 SCENE 6 (Duncan)

"Or art thou but // A dagger of the mind, a false creation"
ACT 2 SCENE 1

"this my hand will rather // The multitudinous seas incarnadine, // Making the green one red."
ACT 2 SCENE 2 (Macbeth)

"Out, damned spot! Out, I say!"
"What, will these hands ne'er be clean?"
ACT 5 SCENE 1 (Lady Macbeth)

"Oh, full of scorpions is my mind"
ACT 3 SCENE (Macbeth)

THEME OF GENDER

"Hie thee hither, // That I may pour my spirits in thine ear // And chastise with the valoor of my tongue // All that impedes thee from the golden round"
ACT 1 SCENE 5 (Lady Macbeth)

"Hie thee hither, // That I may pour my spirits in thine ear // And chastise with the valoor of my tongue // All that impedes thee from the golden round"
ACT 1 SCENE 5 (Lady Macbeth)

"Come, you spirits // That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,"
"Stop up the access and passage to remorse, // That no compunctious visitings of nature // Shake my fell purpose"
ACT 1 SCENE 5 (Lady Macbeth)

"When you durst do it, then you were a man"
"to look so green and pale"
ACT 1 SCENE 7 (Lady Macbeth about Macbeth)

"I would, while it was smiling in my face, ... // dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you // Have done to this."
ACT 1 SCENE 7

"O gentle lady, // 'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak."
ACT 2 SCENE 3

THEME OF THE SUPERNATURAL

"When the hurly-burly's done, // When the battle's lost and won."
ACT 1 SCENE 1

"take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers, // Wherever in your sightless substances // You wait on nature's mischief."
ACT 1 SCENE 5 (Lady Macbeth)

" ere to black Hecate's summons // The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums ... // there shall be done // A deed of dreadful note."
ACT 3 SCENE 2 (Macbeth)