All Quotes

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

"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 pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums, And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn As you have done to this."

"Macbeth: If we should fail — Lady Macbeth: We fail! But screw your courage to the sticking-place, And we'll not fail."

"Away, and mock the time with fairest show: False face must hide what the false heart doth know."

"What a haste looks through his eyes!"

"The moon is down; I have not heard the clock."

"There's [husbandry]] in heaven; Their candles are all out."

"Merciful powers! Restrain in me the cursèd thoughts that nature Gives way to in repose."

"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-oppressed brain? I see thee yet, in form as palpable As this which now I draw."

"Now o'er the one-half world Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse The curtain'd sleep; witchcraft celebrates Pale Hecate's offerings."

"Thou sure and firm-set earth, Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear The very stones prate of my where-about."

"I go, and it is done; the bell invites me. Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell That summons thee to heaven, or to hell."

"Methought I heard a voice cry, Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep, — the innocent sleep; Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd 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."

"Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead Are but as pictures. 'Tis the eye of childhood That fears a painted devil."

"Whence is that knocking? How is't with me, when every noise appals me? What hands are here? Ha, they pluck out mine eyes. 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."

"Faith, here's an equivocator, that could swear in both the scales against either scale; who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven"

"Porter: Drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things. Macduff: What three things does drink especially provoke? Porter: Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes; it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance: therefore, much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars him; it sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him, and disheartens him; makes him stand to, and not stand to; in conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him."

"Confusion now hath made his masterpiece! Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence The life o' the building!"

"Ring the alarum-bell. Murder and treason! Banquo and Donalbain! Malcolm! awake! Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit, And look on death itself! up, up, and see The great doom's image!"

"Had I but died an hour before this chance I had liv'd a blessed time; for, from this instant, There's nothing serious in mortality: All is but toys; renown and grace is dead; The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees Is left this vault to brag of."

"Who can be wise, amaz'd, temperate and furious, Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man: The expedition of my violent love Outrun the pauser, reason. Here lay Duncan, His silver skin lac'd with his golden blood, And his gash'd stabs looked like a breach in nature, for Ruin's wasteful entrance. There, the murderers; Steeped in the colors of their trade, their very daggers unmannerly breached with gore. Who could refrain, That had a heart to love, and in that heart, Courage to make's love known?"

"In the great hand of God I stand; and thence Against the undivulg'd pretence I fight Of treasonous malice!"

"To show an unfelt sorrow is an office Which the false man does easy."

"There’s daggers in men’s smiles."

"A falcon, touring in her pride of place, Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd."

"Here comes the good Macduff. — How goes the world, sir, now?"

"God's benison go with you; and with those That would make good of bad, and friends of foes!"

"I must become a borrower of the night For a dark hour or twain."

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

"Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown, And put a barren sceptre in my grip, Thence to be wrench'd with an unlineal hand, No son of mine proceeding."

"First Murderer: We are men, my liege. Macbeth: Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men."

"Second Murderer: I am one, my liege, Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world Have so incens'd, that I am reckless what I do To spite the world. First Murderer: And I another, 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."

"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."

"Things without all remedy Should be without regard: what's done is done."

"We have scotch'd the snake, not killed it."

"Duncan is in his grave; After life's fitful fever he sleeps well; Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison, Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing, Can touch him further."

"Then be thou jocund: ere the bat hath flown His cloister'd flight; ere, to black Hecate's summons The shard-borne beetle, with his drowsy hums, Hath rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done A deed of dreadful note."

"Come, seeling night, Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day; And with thy bloody and invisible hand, Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond Which keeps me pale! — Light thickens; and the crow Makes wing to the rooky wood. Good things of day begin to droop and drowse, While night's black agents to their preys do rouse."

"Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill."

"Banquo: It will be rain to-night. First Murderer: Let it come down. Banquo: O, treachery! — Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly! Thou mayst revenge. — O, slave!"

"Now spurs the lated traveller apace To gain the timely inn; and near approaches The subject of our watch."

"But now, I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, bound in To saucy doubts and fears."

"Now, good digestion wait on appetite, And health on both!"

"Thou canst not say I did it: never shake Thy gory locks at me."

"Lady Macbeth: Are you a man? Macbeth: Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that Which might appall the devil."

"I drink to the general joy o' the whole table, And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss; Would he were here! to all, and him, we thirst, And all to all."

"What man dare, I dare: Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear, The arm'd rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger; Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves Shall never tremble: or be alive again, And dare me to the desert with thy sword; If trembling I inhabit then, protest me The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow! Unreal mockery, hence!"

"Stand not upon the order of your going, But go at once."

"It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood: Stones have been known to move and trees to speak."

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