Famous quotes from Macbeth

Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy, Macbeth, tells a story of ambition, violent murder, and its crippling psychological aftereffects, all foretold by a trio of witches in the play’s first scene. King James I, patron of Shakespeare’s acting company, had a deep interest in witchcraft which may have inspired Shakespeare. The title role has been played by some of the world’s great actors, and the story has been adapted into musicals, films, television, opera, novels, and comics. Below are some of the play’s most well-known lines, in order of their appearance in the play.

FIRST WITCH: When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
SECOND WITCH: When the hurly-burly’s done,
When the battle’s lost and won.
THIRD WITCH: That will be ere the set of sun.
FIRST WITCH: Where the place?
SECOND WITCH: Upon the heath.
THIRD WITCH: There to meet with Macbeth.
—Witches, Act 1, Scene 1

Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air.
—Witches, Act 1, Scene 1

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.
—Lady Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 5

If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well
It were done quickly.
—Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 7

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.
—Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 1

That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold.
What hath quenched them hath given me fire.
—Lady Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 2

Methought I heard a voice cry “Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep”—the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve 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, Act 2, Scene 2

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.
—Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 2 

It will have blood, they say; blood will have blood.
—Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 4

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
—Witches, Act 4, Scene 1

By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
—Second Witch, Act 4, Scene 1

Macbeth shall never vanquished be until
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane Hill
Shall come against him.
—Third apparition, Act 4, Scene 1

Out, damned spot, out, I say!
—Lady Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 1

What’s done cannot be undone.
—Lady Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 1

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, Act 5, Scene 5

And let the angel whom thou still hast served
Tell thee Macduff was from his mother’s womb
Untimely ripped.
—Macduff, Act 5, Scene 8

Lay on, Macduff,
And damned be him that first cries, ‘Hold! Enough!’
—Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 8