80 Important Quotes You Should Pay Attention to in Macbeth

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#16: I will not yield, / To kiss the ground before young Malcolm’s feet, / And to be baited with the rabble’s curse. / Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane, / And thou opposed, being of no woman born, / Yet I will try the last. Before my body / I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff, / And damned be him that first cries, “Hold, enough!”

• Character: Macbeth 
• Act 5, Scene 7
• Techniques: Characterisation

Lady Macbeth Quotes about Ambition from Macbeth

#17: Yet do I fear thy nature; / It is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness

• Character: Lady Macbeth
• Act 1, Scene 5
• Techniques: Characterisation

Analysis:

Lady Macbeth is contemplating the idea of her husband becoming king and realises that he may be too gentle and compassionate to seize power by violent means.

The phrase “Yet do I fear thy nature” suggests that Lady Macbeth is aware of her husband’s gentle and kind nature, and she worries that it may hinder his ambition to become king. She is concerned that he lacks the ruthlessness and brutality necessary to seize power and maintain it.

The phrase “It is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness” is a metaphor that suggests Macbeth is too soft-hearted and compassionate. He is filled with the “milk of human kindness,” which implies that he is too nurturing and caring to commit the kind of ruthless actions that Lady Macbeth thinks are necessary to become king.

This quote highlights the contrast between Macbeth’s kind nature and Lady Macbeth’s ambition for power. Lady Macbeth recognises that her husband’s innate goodness may be an obstacle to their plans, and she later convinces him to commit the murder of King Duncan in order to fulfil the prophecy. This quote is a pivotal moment in the play, as it sets the stage for Lady Macbeth’s manipulation of her husband and their descent into darkness.

#18: Art not without ambition, but without / The illness should attend it. 

• Character: Lady Macbeth
• Act 1, Scene 5
• Techniques: Characterisation

#19: The raven himself is hoarse / That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan

• Character: Lady Macbeth
• Act 1, Scene 5
• Techniques: Foreshadowing, characterisation, symbolism

#20: 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.

• Character: Lady Macbeth
• Act 3, Scene 2
• Techniques: Rhyming couplet

Guilt Quotes from Macbeth

While initially, Lady Macbeth was someone who seemed heartless and didn’t feel bad for the murder of Duncan, we see her character experience guilt which leads to her insanity. For Macbeth, he has hallucinations as a result of the consequences of murdering Duncan and his friend, Banquo.

#21: 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. / Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible / To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but / A dagger of the mind, a false creation, / Proceeding from the heat-oppressèd brain?

• Character: Macbeth 
• Act 2, Scene 1
• Techniques: Monologue, metaphor

#22: “Sleep no more! / Macbeth does murder sleep”—the innocent sleep, / Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave 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.

• Character: Macbeth
• Act 2, Scene 2
• Techniques: Repetition, symbolism

#23: 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.

• Character: Macbeth 
• Act 2, Scene 2
• Techniques: Figurative language, symbolism

Analysis:

He is contemplating the enormity of his crime and the guilt and shame he feels. He is asking a rhetorical question about whether he can ever wash away the blood on his hands, which is a symbol of his guilt and his moral corruption.

The phrase “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?” refers to the ancient Roman god of the sea, Neptune. Macbeth is asking whether even the vastness of the ocean can wash away the stain of his crime, and he concludes that it cannot.

The phrase “No, this my hand will rather / The multitudinous seas incarnadine, / Making the green one red” is a metaphor for the idea that the blood on his hands is so pervasive that it will contaminate everything it touches, even the vast seas of the world. The use of the word “incarnadine” means to turn something red, which suggests that the blood on his hands will spread and taint everything around him.

Overall, this quote highlights the magnitude of Macbeth’s guilt and the fact that his crime has irreversibly changed him. He realises that he cannot escape the consequences of his actions and that the blood on his hands will always be a reminder of his moral corruption.

#24: A little water clears us of this deed. / How easy is it, then! Your constancy / Hath left you unattended.

• Character: Lady Macbeth
• Act 2, Scene 2
• Techniques: Irony, contrast

#25: We have scorched the snake, not killed it. / She’ll close and be herself whilst our poor malice / Remains in danger of her former tooth.

• Character: Macbeth
• Act 3, Scene 2
• Techniques: Metaphor

#26: Oh, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!
Thou know’st that Banquo, and his Fleance, lives.

• Character: Macbeth
• Act 3, Scene 2
• Techniques: Metaphor, figurative language 

#27: But now I am cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in / To saucy doubts and fears.

• Character: Macbeth 
• Act 3, Scene 4
• Techniques: Alliteration

Analysis:

The phrase “cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in” suggests a sense of imprisonment and restriction. Macbeth feels trapped and constrained by his doubts and fears.

The word “cabined” means to be confined to a small space, while “cribbed” means to be enclosed or confined in a narrow space. The repetition of “confined” and “bound in” further emphasizes the sense of being trapped and restricted. Macbeth feels like he cannot escape his doubts and fears, and they are suffocating him.

The phrase “To saucy doubts and fears” suggests that Macbeth’s doubts and fears are insolent and disrespectful. They are “saucy” in the sense that they are insolent and impudent, as if they are taunting him. Macbeth feels like he is being tormented by his own thoughts, which are mocking him and his actions.

Overall, this quote highlights the psychological toll that Macbeth’s actions have taken on him. He is consumed by guilt and fear, and he feels trapped by his own doubts and anxieties. This sense of confinement and restriction will ultimately lead to his downfall, as he becomes increasingly paranoid and isolated.

#28: Thanks for that. / There the grown serpent lies. The worm that’s fled / Hath nature that in time will venom breed; / No teeth for th’ present.

• Character: Macbeth 
• Act 3, Scene 4
• Techniques: Metaphor

#29: Blood will have blood. / Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak. / Augurs and understood relations have / By magot pies and choughs and rooks brought forth / The secret’st man of blood

• Character: Macbeth
• Act 3, Scene 4
• Techniques: Foreshadowing

#30: Out, damned spot! Out, I say!—One, two. / Why, then, ’tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky!— / Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard? / What need we fear who knows it, when / none can call our power to account?—Yet / who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.

• Character: Lady Macbeth
• Act 5, Scene 1
• Techniques: Disjointed speech, symbolism, parallel

#31: Here’s the smell of the blood still. All the / perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten / this little hand. Oh, Oh, Oh!

• Character: Lady Macbeth
• Act 5, Scene 1
• Techniques: Imagery, hyperbole, symbolism

#32: 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 honor, love, obedience, troops of friends, / I must not look to have, but, in their stead, / Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honor, breath / Which the poor heart would fain deny and dare not.

• Character: Macbeth 
• Act 5, Scene 3
• Techniques: Figurative language

#33: But get thee back. My soul is too much charged / With blood of thine already.

• Character: Macbeth 
• Act 5, Scene 7
• Techniques: Figurative language

Masculinity

The way masculinity is represented in this play is heavily linked to being ambitious. Lady Macbeth’s quotes tend to talk about how Macbeth is cowardly and not “man” enough to go after the power they “deserve”.

#34: This have I thought good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of /  greatness, that thou might’st not lose the / dues of rejoicing, by being ignorant of what / greatness is promised thee. Lay it to thy / heart, and farewell.

• Character: Lady Macbeth (reading Macbeth’s letter) 
• Act 1, Scene 5
• Techniques: Characterisation 

#35: I may pour my spirits in thine ear / And chastise with the valor of my tongue/ All that impedes thee from the golden round,”

• Character: Lady Macbeth
• Act 1, Scene 5
• Techniques: Characterisation, metaphor

#36: 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. Make thick my blood. / Stop up the access and passage to remorse

•  Character: Lady Macbeth
• Act 1, Scene 5
• Techniques: Imagery

#37: Come to my woman’s breasts, / And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers

• Character: Lady Macbeth
• Act 1, Scene 5
• Techniques: Figurative language

#38: 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.

• Character: Lady Macbeth 
• Act 1, Scene 7
• Techniques: Metaphor

#39: That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold. / What hath quenched them hath given me fire.

• Character: Lady Macbeth
• Act 2, Scene 2
• Techniques: Juxtaposition, characterisation

#40: My hands are of your colour, but I shame / To wear a heart so white.

• Character: Lady Macbeth 
• Act 2, Scene 2
• Techniques: Figurative language

Analysis:

She is comparing their hands, which are stained with blood, and noting that they are the same color. However, she is also saying that she is ashamed to wear a heart as white as Macbeth’s.

The phrase “My hands are of your colour” suggests that Lady Macbeth is equally responsible for the murder of King Duncan as Macbeth. She has encouraged him to commit the crime and has even helped him to carry it out. Her hands are also stained with blood, and she shares in the guilt and shame of the murder.

The phrase “but I shame / To wear a heart so white” is a metaphor for the idea that Lady Macbeth is ashamed of Macbeth’s lack of ruthlessness and ambition. The color white is often associated with purity and innocence, which Lady Macbeth sees as a weakness in her husband. She is disappointed that he is not more ruthless and ambitious, and she believes that his “white” heart is holding them back from achieving their goals.

Overall, this quote highlights the contrast between Lady Macbeth’s ambition and Macbeth’s conscience. Lady Macbeth is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve their goals, while Macbeth is struggling with his guilt and his sense of morality. This tension between ambition and conscience is a key theme in the play and ultimately leads to Macbeth’s downfall.

#41: This is the very painting of your fear. / This is the air-drawn dagger which you said / Led you to Duncan. Oh, these flaws and starts, / Impostors to true fear, would well become /A woman’s story at a winter’s fire, / Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself!

• Character: Lady Macbeth
• Act 3, Scene 4
• Techniques: Juxtaposition, characterisation

Quotes about Morality from Macbeth

This play questions a lot of characters’ morality in terms of what they are willing to do in order to get what they want.

#42: There’s no art / To find the mind’s construction in the face. / He was a gentleman on whom I built / An absolute trust.

• Character: Duncan
• Act 1, Scene 4
• Techniques: Foreshadowing

#43: The prince of Cumberland! That is a step / On which I must fall down, or else o’erleap, / For in my way it lies 

• Characters: Macbeth
• Act 1, Scene 4
• Techniques: Aside, metaphor

#44: Look like th’ innocent flower, / But be the serpent under ’t. 

• Character: Lady Macbeth 
• Act 1, Scene 5
• Techniques: Simile, metaphor

#45: This castle hath a pleasant seat. The air  / Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself / Unto our gentle senses.

• Character: Duncan
• Act 1, Scene 6
• Techniques: Irony

#46: Where we are, / There’s daggers in men’s smiles. The near in blood, / The nearer bloody.

• Character: Donalblain
• Act 2, Scene 3
• Meaning: Donalbain says that him and his brother Malcolm shouldn’t stay where they are, as it isn’t safe. There are people who want them dead and he can tell just from the way others are looking at them — there’s a motivation that he doesn’t want to see come to fruition.
• Techniques: Metaphor

#47: With hidden help and vantage, or that with both / He labored in his country’s wrack, I know not; / But treasons capital, confessed and proved, / Have overthrown him.

• Character: Angus
• Act 1, Scene 3
• Techniques: Figurative language, irony 

#48: This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues, / Was once thought honest

• Character: Malcolm
• Act 4, Scene 3
• Techniques: Connotation, parallel

#49: Macduff: I am not treacherous. / Malcolm: But Macbeth is. / A good and virtuous nature may recoil / In an imperial charge.

• Characters: Macduff and Malcolm
• Act 4, Scene 3
• Techniques: Parallel, characterisation

Power Quotes from Macbeth

Power is also a theme within the play that is strongly linked to ambition and desire. It is something Macbeth aspires to have when he is told by the witches that he is meant to be king — but the way he goes about attaining it and keeping it is morally questionable.

#50: For brave Macbeth—well he deserves that name— / Disdaining fortune, with his brandished steel, / Like valor’s minion carved out his passage / Till he faced the slave

• Character: Captain
• Act 1, Scene 2
• Techniques: Direct characterisation, simile

#51: All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!

• Character: Third Witch 
• Act 1, Scene 3
• Techniques: Foreshadowing

#52: The son of Duncan— / From whom this tyrant holds the due of birth—

• Character: Lord
• Act 3, Scene 6
• Techniques: Connotation, fatal flaw 

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

• Character: Second Apparition 
• Act 3, Scene 1
• Techniques: Foreshadowing

#54: 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. No boasting like a fool. / This deed I’ll do before this purpose cool. 

• Character: Macbeth
• Act 4, Scene 1
• Techniques: Characterisation, fatal flaw  

#55: New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows / Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds / As if it felt with Scotland and yelled out / Like syllable of dolor.

• Character: Macduff
• Act 4, Scene 3
• Techniques: Imagery, repetition, setting 

#56: Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell.

• Character: Malcolm
• Act 4, Scene 3
• Techniques: Biblical allusion

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

• Character: Malcolm
• Act 4, Scene 3
• Techniques: Personification, metaphor, setting

#58: Not in the legions / Of horrid hell can come a devil more damned / In evils to top Macbeth.

• Character: Macduff
• Act 4, Scene 3
• Techniques: Connotation, hyperbole

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

• Character: Angus
• Act 5, Scene 2
• Meaning: This line explains what Angus believes Macbeth feels at this point in the play. The title doesn’t suit him and Macbeth is compared to a dwarf wearing the stolen clothes of a giant. The way Angus describes him is spot on, because he did steal the crown, rather than letting the prophecy of the witches happen organically.
• Techniques: Simile, characterisation

#60: Meet we the medicine of the sickly weal, / And with him pour we in our country’s purge / Each drop of us.

• Character: Caithness
• Act 5, Scene 2
• Techniques: Metaphor

#61: Bring me no more reports. Let them fly all. /Till Birnam Wood remove to Dunsinane / I cannot taint with fear.

• Character: Macbeth
• Act 5, Scene 3
• Techniques: Characterisation, fatal flaw 

#62: Bring it after me. / I will not be afraid of death and bane / Till Birnam Forest come to Dunsinane.

• Character: Macbeth 
• Act 5, Scene 3
• Techniques: Rhyming couplet, fatal flaw 

#63: I have almost forgot the taste of fears.

• Character: Macbeth 
• Act 5, Scene 4
• Techniques: Figurative language, characterisation

#64: I pull in resolution and begin / To doubt th’ equivocation of the fiend / That lies like truth. 

• Character: Macbeth 
• Act 5, Scene 5
• Techniques: Fatal flaw 

Nature and the Supernatural

#65: Fair is foul, and foul is fair / Hover through the fog and filthy air

• Character: 3 Witches
• Act 1, Scene 1 
• Techniques: Rhyming couplet, imagery

#66: When the hurly-burly’s done, / When the battle’s lost and won.

• Character: 3 Witches
• Act 1, Scene 1 
• Techniques: Rhyming couplet, characterisation

#67: So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

• Character: Macbeth
• Act 1, Scene 3
• Techniques: Paradox, pathetic fallacy

#68: The weird sisters, hand in hand, / Posters of the sea and land, / Thus do go about, about, / Thrice to thine and thrice to mine / And thrice again, to make up nine. / Peace! The charm’s wound up.

• Character: Witches
• Act 1, Scene 3
• Techniques: Imagery

#69: So withered and so wild in their attire, / That look not like th’ inhabitants o’ th’ Earth, / And yet are on ’t?

• Character: Banquo
• Act 1, Scene 3
• Techniques: Characterisation

#70: Witchcraft celebrates / Pale Hecate’s offerings, and withered murder, / Alarumed by his sentinel, the wolf, / Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, / With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design / Moves like a ghost.

• Character: Macbeth
• Act 2, Scene 1
• Techniques: Symbolism, connotation, imagery

#71: Here’s a knocking indeed! If a man were porter of hell-gate, he should have old turning the key.

• Character: Porter
• Act 2, Scene 3
• Techniques: Metaphor

#72: Lamentings heard i’ th’ air, strange screams of death, / And prophesying with accents terrible / Of dire combustion and confused events / New hatched to the woeful time. 

• Character: Lennox
• Act 2, Scene 3
• Techniques: Imagery, foreshadowing

#73: By th’ clock ’tis day, / And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp. / Is ’t night’s predominance or the day’s shame / That darkness does the face of Earth entomb / When living light should kiss it? 

• Character: Ross
• Act 2, Scene 4
• Techniques: Imagery

#74: Even like the deed that’s done. On Tuesday last, / A falcon, tow’ring in her pride of place, / Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed.

• Character: Ross
• Act 2, Scene 4
• Techniques: Imagery, symbolism

#75: Enter the GHOST OF BANQUO, and sits in MACBETH’s place

• Stage direction
• Act 3, Scene 4
• Meaning: In the banquet at Macbeth’s castle, Banquo is absent because Macbeth had him killed. Macbeth’s guilt manifests in the form of him seeing the ghost of Banquo at the banquet and no one else there can see him, only Macbeth.
• Techniques: Imagery

#76: Shall raise such artificial sprites / As by the strength of their illusion / Shall draw him on to his confusion.

• Character: Hecate
• Act 3, Scene 5
• Techniques: Rhyming couplet

#77: He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear / His hopes ‘bove wisdom, grace, and fear. / And you all know, security / Is mortals’ chiefest enemy.

• Character: Hecate
• Act 3, Scene 5
• Techniques: Foreshadowing

#78: Double, double toil and trouble, /Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

• Character: Witches
• Act 4, Scene 1
• Meaning: This is a chant said by the witches, which are very vague in meaning. However, they are essentially saying that Macbeth has brought on double the trouble upon himself for murdering people in order to get the crown.
• Techniques: Imagery, rhyming

#79: Foul whisp’rings are abroad. Unnatural deeds / Do breed unnatural troubles.

• Character: Doctor
• Act 5, Scene 1
• Techniques: Imagery, motif, parallel 

#80: As I did stand my watch upon the hill, / I looked toward Birnam, and anon methought / The wood began to move.

• Character: Messenger
• Act 5, Scene 5
• Techniques: Foreshadowing

What are Macbeth’s last words?

Yet I will try the last. Before my body

I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff,

And damned be him that first cries, “Hold, enough!”

• Character: Macbeth
• Act 5, Scene 8