Best Quotes from Macbeth by William Shakespeare with Page Numbers

Fair is foul, and foul is fair.

If chance will have me King, why, chance may crown me, Without my stir.

There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face.

I am in blood Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o’er.

Come what come may, Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.

Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.

What’s done is done.

The service and the loyalty I owe, In doing it, pays itself.

Throw physic to the dogs—I’ll none of it.

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.

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

Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more; / Macbeth does murder sleep'.

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.

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.

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.

Thou marvellous muggle, too full o' th' milk of human kindness.

What, will these hands ne’er be clean? / Here’s the smell of the blood still.

I have given suck, and know / How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me.

The time is free.

Thanks to all at once and to each one, / Whom we invite to see us crown’d at Scone.

Fair is foul, and foul is fair.

Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness.

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

O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!

Thou wouldst be great; Art not without ambition.

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

I have no spur / To prick the sides of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself.

This even-handed justice commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice to our own lips.

It will be rain tonight.

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

"Each new morn / New widows howl, new orphans cry; new sorrows / Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds / As if it felt with Scotland."

"Alas, poor country, / . . . where violent sorrow seems / A modern ecstasy."

"Not in the legions / Of horrid hell can come a devil more damn’d / In evils to top Macbeth."

"O nation miserable!"

"This tyrant . . . Was once thought honest."

"Better be with the dead / Than on the torture of the mind to lie / In restless ecstasy."

". . . those / That would make good of bad, and friends of foes."

"Put on their instruments."

". . . the grace of the king-becoming virtues, / Justice, verity, temp’rance, stableness, / Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness, / Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude."

"It cannot / Be call'd our mother, but our grave; . . . / Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks, that rent the air, / Are made."

"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." (5.5.24-28)

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, / Creeps in this petty pace from day to day / To the last syllable of recorded time," (5.5.22-24)

"All our yesterdays have lighted fools / The way to dusty death." (5.5.25-26)

"She should have died hereafter; / There would have been a time for such a word." (5.5.17-18)

"Out, out, brief candle!" (5.5.23)

"It is a condition of nihilism that, when extrapolated onto the stage of society, reveals a world stripped of every supernatural reference."

"Evil will at last be exposed, effectively shown for what it is in all its debasing nihilism, in the sheer repulsiveness of its effect upon the sinner."

"Yet, for all that, there must remain, this side of the grave at least, the real possibility of reversing course, of finding true sorrow amid even the most hardened heart."

"Do we really wish for him every possible impunity?"

"What might have been and what has been, point to one end, which is always present."

Fair is foul, and foul is fair.

Blood hath been shed ere now, i’ th’ olden time.

There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face.

I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day.

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage.

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

Thou marvellous unearthly creature!

When you durst do it, then you were a man.

Out, out, brief candle!