Macbeth Quotes to Learn
Act IAll (witches): Fair is foul, and foul is fair; Hover through the fog and filthy air. Captain: For brave Macbeth - well he deserves that name - Disdaining fortune, with his brandished steel, Which smoked with bloody execution, Like Valour’s minion, carved out his passage, Till he faced the slave; Duncan: O valiant cousin, worthy gentleman! Duncan: No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive Our bosom interest. Go pronounce his present death, And with his former title greet Macbeth. Macbeth: So foul and fair a day I have not seen. First witch: All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis! Second witch: All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor! Third witch: All hail, Macbeth! That shall be king hereafter. Macbeth: … why do you dress me In borrowed robes? Duncan: There’s no art To find the mind’s construction in the face: He was a gentleman on whom I built An absolute trust Macbeth: The service and the loyalty I owe, In doing it, pays itself. Duncan: My worthy Cawdor! Macbeth: The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step On which I must fall down, or else o’er-leap, For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires! Let not light see my black and deep desires: The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see. Duncan: It is a peerless kinsman. Lady Macbeth: … This have I thought good to Deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness, Lady Macbeth: … Yet do I fear thy nature, It is too full o’ th’ milk of human- kindness To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great, Art not without ambition, but without The illness should attend it; what thou wouldst highly, That thou wouldst holily, wouldst not play false, 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! … Come to my woman’s breasts, And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers, … Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Lady Macbeth: … look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under’t. Macbeth: … if the assassination Could trammel up the consequence, … We’d jump the life to come. Macbeth: I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o’er-leaps itself And falls on the other - Macbeth: We will proceed no further in this business: He hath honoured me of late; and I have bought 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. Lady Macbeth: 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. Act 4First apparition: Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth!
Beware Macduff; Beware the Thane of Fife. Dismiss me. Enough. Second apparition: Be bloody, bold, and resolute: laugh to scorn The power of man, for none of woman born Shall harm Macbeth. Third apparition: Macbeth shall never be vanquished until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill Shall come against him. Lady Macduff: His flight was madness. When our actions do not, Our fears do make us traitors. Macduff: … Each new morn New widows howl, new orphans cry; new sorrows Strike heaven on the face, Malcolm: … The king-becoming graces, As justice, verity, temperance, stableness, Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness, Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude, I have no relish of them,
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Act 2Banquo: So I lose none In seeking to augment it, but still keep My bosom franchised and allegiance clear, I shall be counselled. Lady Macbeth: … Had he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done’t. Macbeth: … I could not say ‘Amen’ When they did say ‘God bless us!’ Lady Macbeth: Consider it not so deeply. Lady Macbeth: These deeds must not be thought After these ways: so, it will make us mad. Lady Macbeth: A little water clears us of this deed: Macbeth: To know my deed, ‘twere best not know myself. Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst! Macduff: Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope The Lord’s anointed temple, and stole thence The life o’the building. Act 3Lady Macbeth: Nought’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. … Why do you keep alone, Macbeth: And make our faces vizards to our hearts, Disguising what they are. Macbeth: O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife! Macbeth: Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, Till thou applaud the deed… Macbeth: But now I am cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in To saucy doubts and fears. Macbeth: I hear it by the way; but I will send: There’s not a one of them but in his house I keep a servant fee’d. … For mine own good 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. Hecate: Hath been but for a wayward son, Spiteful and wrathful; Hecate: And that distilled by magic sleights Shall raise such artificial sprites As by the strength of their illusion Shall draw him on to his confusion. He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear His hopes ‘bove wisdom, grace, and fear; And you all know security Is mortals’ chiefest enemy. Lennox: … our suffering country Under a hand accursed! Act 5Lady Macbeth: Here’s the smell of the blood
still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Angus: … now does he feel his title Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe Upon a dwarfish thief. Macbeth: I have lived long enough: my way of life Is fall’n into the sere, the yellow leaf; And that which should accompany old age, As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have; but, in their stead, Curses, not loud but deep, mouth- honour, breath, Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not. Malcolm: Let every soldier hew him down a bough And bear’t before him: thereby shall we shadow The numbers of our host, and make discovery Err in report of us. Macbeth: She should have died hereafter; There would have been a time for such a word. … 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: I pull in resolution, and begin To doubt th’ equivocation of the fiend, That lies like the truth: … I ‘gin to be aweary of the sun, And wish th’ estate o’ the world were now undone. Ring the alarum bell! Blow wind, come wrack! At least we’ll die with harness on our back. Macbeth: They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly, But bear-like I must fight the course. Macduff: … Macduff was from his mother’s womb Untimely ripped. Macbeth: And be these juggling fiends no more believed, That palter with us in a double sense, That keep the word of promise to our ear, And break it to our hope. I’ll not fight with thee. Malcolm: Of this dead butcher and his fiend- like queen, Who, as ‘tis thought, by self and violent hands Took off her life. |