Macbeth key quotes
Act 1
Act 2
Act 3
Act 5
Act 4
Scene 1
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair”
Scene 2
“he fixed his (traitors) head upon our battlements”
“Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe”
“and with his former title greet Macbeth”
Scene 3
“hail to thee, Thane of Cawder”
Scene 4
“there’s no art to find the minds construction in the face”
“I have begun to plant thee, and will labour to make thee full of growing”
Scene 5
“is too full of ‘th’milk of human kindness”.
. “Come you spirits” “make thick my blood, stop up th’access and passage my remorse”
“worthy Cawdor”
“look like th’innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t”
Scene 6
“pleasant”
“honoured hostess!”
“servant”
“every point twice done and then done doubled”
Scene 7
“which been taught, return and plaque th’inventor”
“Poisoned chalice”
“virtues will plead like angels”
“no spur to prick the sides of my intent”
“will proceed no further in this business”
“like the poor cat I’th’adage”
Scene 1
“My eyes are made the fools o’ the other senses”
“dash the brains out”
“Hear it or not, Duncan; for it is a knell that summons thee to heaven or hell”
Scene 2
“That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold”
“had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done’t”
“infirm of purpose”
“The multitudinous seas incarnadine making the green one red”
Scene 3
“Tis not for you to heart what is speak”
“There’s daggers in men’s smile”
Scene 4
“Tis said they eat each other”
Scene 1
“Here’s our chief guest”
“you ride this afternoon”
“Rather than so, come fate into the list. And champion me to the utterance”
“it is concluded. Banquo, thy soul’s fight, if it finds heaven, must find it out tonight”
Scene 2
“Tis safer to be that which we destroy than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy”
“Duncan is in his grave; after life’s fitful fever he sleeps well”
“Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing can touch him further”
“beetles”, “scorpions”, “crow” “bat”
Scene 3
“Fleance escapes”
Scene 4
“play the humble host”
“cabined, cribbed, and confined”
“enter the ghost of Banquo”
“Sit…pray…feed”
“worthy friends…noble friends”
“Are you a man?” “What, quite unmanned in folly”
“they will rise again”
“take any shape but that and my firm nerves shall never tremble”
Scene 5
“He shall spurn fate”
Scene 6
“To kill their gracious father?”
Scene 1
“something wicked” (“by the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes”)
“An armed head”
“descending”
“From this moment, the very firstlings of my heart shall be the firstling of my hand”
Scene 2
“How will you do for a husband?” “Why, I can buy me twenty at any market”
“dashing the brains out”
“Young fry of treachery”
Scene 3
“Angels are bright still though the brightest fell”
“deceitful, malicious, false” and the good traits “mercy, courage, patience”
“why, well.”
“all my pretty one, did you say all”
Scene 1
“she has light by her continually. ‘Tis her command”
“the damned spot”
Scene 3
“has lived long enough”
“put my armour on”
“Pull’t off, I say”
Scene 5
“of the sun”
Scene 7
“they fight”
The repition of “exit” and “enter” stage directions creates confusion and shows how much is happening
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Scene 8
“voice is my sword”
“kiss the ground before young Malcolm’s feet.”
Scene 9
“graced by grace”