50 Famous William Shakespeare Quotes From Macbeth
“Macbeth meets the three witches; scene from Shakespeare’s ‘M“, by Wellcome Images, is licensed under CC-BY-4.0
William Shakespeare was a renowned English poet, playwright, and actor born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon. He has become the most famous and influential author in English literature. Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England’s national poet and nicknamed the Bard of Avon. Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613. He wrote about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, of which the authorship of some is uncertain. Shakespeare’s writing developed and evolved throughout his career. Scholars often divide his work into periods based on different aspects of his writing style.
He died within a month of signing his will, a document which he begins by describing himself as being in “perfect health”. In his will, Shakespeare left the bulk of his large estate to his elder daughter Susanna. Shakespeare was buried in the chancel of the Holy Trinity Church two days after his death. He retired from writing in 1613 and died three years later at the age of fifty-two. Most of his works were published posthumously in 1623. Shakespeare’s plays remain highly popular today and are constantly studied, performed, and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world.
Macbeth Quotes
“The color of the king doth come and go,
Between his purpose and his conscience,
Like heralds ‘twixt two dreadful battles set:
His passion is so ripe, it needs must break.”
The Plays and Poems of Shakspeare: Macbeth. King John. Richard the Second (ed. 1833)
“Thou canst not say I did it: never shake
Thy gory locks at me.”
Macbeth (1606) act 3, sc. 4, l. 50
“But now I am cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in
To saucy doubts and fears.”
Macbeth (1606) act 3, sc. 4, l. 24
“Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.”
Macbeth (1606) act 4, sc. 1, l. 10
“Now good digestion wait on appetite,
And health on both!”
Macbeth (1606) act 3, sc. 4, l. 38
“Macbeth: What is the night?
Lady Macbeth: Almost at odds with morning, which is which.”
Macbeth, III, iv, 126
“To show an unfelt sorrow is an office
Which the false man does easy.”
Macbeth, II, iii, 143
“If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, Without my stir.”
Macbeth (1606), I, iii, 143
“Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell,
Uproar the universal peace, confound
All unity on earth.”
Macbeth, IV, iii, 98
“Bring me no more reports; let them fly all:
Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane
I cannot taint with fear.”
Macbeth (1606) act 5, sc. 3, l. 1
“Hang out our banners on the outward walls;
The cry is still, “They come”; our castle’s strength Will laugh a siege to scorn.”
Macbeth, V, v, 1
“Macduff was from his mother’s womb Untimely ripp’d.”
Macbeth, V, vii, 44
“My fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
As life were in ‘t. I have supp’d full with horrors.”
Macbeth, V v, 11
“Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear The very stones prate of my whereabout.”
Macbeth, II, i, 56
“It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman,
Which gives the stern’st good-night.”
Macbeth (1606) act 2, sc. 2, l. 4
“Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers.”
Macbeth (1606) act 1, sc. 5, l. [47]
“And to be king
Stands not within the prospect of belief.”
Macbeth (1606), I, iii, 73
“Or have we eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner?”
Macbeth (1606) act 1, sc. 3, l. 84
“Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?”
Macbeth (1606) act 5, sc. 1, l. [42]
“The bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell.”
Macbeth (1606) act 2, sc. 1, l. 62
“Till he unseamed him from the nave to the chaps,
And fixed his head upon our battlements.”
Macbeth (1606) act 1, sc. 2, l. 22
“Show his eyes, and grieve his heart;
Come like shadows, so depart.”
Macbeth, IV, i, 110
“Your face, my thane, is as a book where men
May read strange matters.”
Macbeth (1606) act 1, sc. 5, l. [63]
“Merciful powers!
Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature Gives way to in repose.”
Macbeth, II, i, 7
“So weary with disasters, tugg’d with fortune, That I would set my life on any chance, To mend it or be rid on’t.”
Macbeth, III, i, 112
“The attempt and not the deed Confounds us.”
Macbeth, II, ii, 12
“Now spurs the lated traveler apace
To gain the timely inn.”
Macbeth, III, iii, 6
“I drink to the general joy of the whole table.”
Macbeth, III, iv, 89
“The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon!
Where gott’st thou that goose look?”
Macbeth (1606) act 5, sc. 3, l. 11
“The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon!
Where gott’st thou that goose look?”
Macbeth (1606) act 5, sc. 3, l. 11
“Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell.”
Macbeth, IV, iii, 22
“I am in blood
Stepp’d in so far, that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o’er.”
Macbeth, III, iv, 136
“Lay on, Macduff;
And damned be him that first cries, ‘Hold, enough!’”
Macbeth (1606) act 5, sc. 7, l. 62
“The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them.”
Macbeth (1606), I, iii, 79
“Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return,
To plague the inventor.”
Macbeth (1606) act 1, sc. 7, l. 9
“Had he not resembled
My father as he slept I had done’t.”
Macbeth (1606) act 2, sc. 2, l. 14
“Two truths are told,
As happy prologues to the swelling act
Of the imperial theme.”
Macbeth (1606) act 1, sc. 3, l. 127
“There’s husbandry in heaven;
Their candles are all out.”
Macbeth (1606) act 2, sc. 1, l. 4
“What! will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?”
Macbeth, IV, i, 117
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air.”
Macbeth (1606) act 1, sc. 1, l. 11
If you liked our selection of William Shakespeare quotes from Macbeth, then perhaps you would also enjoy our collection of 50 Amazing William Shakespeare Quotes from Hamlet.
