Macbeth is Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy, but it is packed with lines that have passed into everyday English, and together they trace a single journey: from words powerful enough to start a murder to a life that means “nothing.”
This guide collects the most famous lines in the play, act by act, with who says each one, where it comes in the story, and what it means. For the play as a whole, see our full guide to Macbeth.
At a Glance
Here are the essentials about the quotations of Macbeth for quick reference.
Act 1 Quotes
Witches, a prophecy, and a plan.
“When Shall We Three Meet Again?”
The First Witch, opening the play: “When shall we three meet again? / In thunder, lightning, or in rain?” In a few lines of chanted rhyme, the witches set a tone of storm, mystery, and evil before any human character appears.
“Fair Is Foul, and Foul Is Fair”
The witches together, ending the first scene. Good and evil, beauty and ugliness, have changed places, and nothing will be what it seems. Our guide to the themes of Macbeth follows this idea through the play.
“So Foul and Fair a Day I Have Not Seen”
Macbeth’s very first line, Act 1, scene 3, spoken about a day of bad weather and great victory. Without knowing it, he echoes the witches’ chant before he has even met them, as if he already belongs to their world.
“There’s No Art to Find the Mind’s Construction in the Face”
Duncan, Act 1, scene 4, about the traitorous Thane of Cawdor: “There’s no art / To find the mind’s construction in the face.” You cannot read a man’s thoughts in his expression. The irony is that he says it just before Macbeth, the next Cawdor, walks in.
“Stars, Hide Your Fires”
Macbeth, aside, after Duncan names Malcolm as his heir: “Stars, hide your fires; / Let not light see my black and deep desires.” He asks for darkness to cover thoughts he cannot yet admit, even to himself.
“Too Full O’ th’ Milk of Human Kindness”
Lady Macbeth, Act 1, scene 5, reading her husband’s letter. She fears his nature “is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness / To catch the nearest way”: too gentle to take the crown by murder. The phrase now means simple compassion, but here it is meant as a criticism.
“Unsex Me Here”
Lady Macbeth, in the same scene: “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.” She asks to be stripped of every gentle quality her age associated with women.
“Look Like th’ Innocent Flower, but Be the Serpent Under ’t”
Lady Macbeth, instructing her husband as Duncan approaches. Welcome the king warmly; hide the deadly purpose underneath. Just before, she warns him that his face “is as a book where men / May read strange matters.”
“If It Were Done When ’Tis Done”
Macbeth, alone, Act 1, scene 7: “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well / It were done quickly.” If the murder could end with the deed itself, “the be-all and the end-all,” he would risk it. But he knows it will not: “we but teach / Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return / To plague th’ inventor.”
“Vaulting Ambition, Which O’erleaps Itself”
Macbeth, ending the same speech: he has no reason to kill Duncan, “but only / Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself / And falls on th’ other.” His ambition is like a rider who leaps into the saddle so hard he falls off the other side.
“Screw Your Courage to the Sticking Place”
Lady Macbeth, when her husband asks what happens if they fail: “We fail? / But screw your courage to the sticking place / And we’ll not fail.” Tighten your courage until it holds firm, like a string wound to its peg, and success will follow.
“False Face Must Hide What the False Heart Doth Know”
Macbeth, closing Act 1, having agreed to the murder. He has learned his wife’s lesson: from now on, his face will be a mask.
Act 2 Quotes
The murder, and the morning after.
“Is This a Dagger Which I See Before Me?”
Macbeth, Act 2, scene 1, alone before the murder: “Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand?” He cannot tell whether it is real or “A dagger of the mind, a false creation / Proceeding from the heat-oppressèd brain.” His imagination is already committing the crime. Our guide to Shakespeare’s soliloquies looks at how speeches like this work.
“Macbeth Does Murder Sleep”
Macbeth, Act 2, scene 2, just after the murder, reporting a voice he heard: “Sleep no more! / Macbeth does murder sleep.” He has killed a sleeping man, and with him his own peace. Sleep, he says, is the “Balm of hurt minds,” and he will never have it again.
“Will All Great Neptune’s Ocean Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand?”
Macbeth, in the same scene, staring at his bloody hands. His answer is no: his hand would sooner “The multitudinous seas incarnadine, / Making the green one red.” Lady Macbeth replies that “A little water clears us of this deed.”
“Knock, Knock! Who’s There?”
The Porter, Act 2, scene 3, answering the knocking at the gate the morning after the murder. He pretends to be the porter of hell, welcoming imaginary sinners. The comedy breaks the tension, and the joke is true: Macbeth’s castle has become a kind of hell.
“There’s Daggers in Men’s Smiles”
Donalbain, Duncan’s younger son, deciding to flee after the murder. In a court where anyone might be the killer, every friendly face could hide a weapon.
Act 3 Quotes
A king who cannot rest, and a ghost at the feast.
“To Be Thus Is Nothing, but to Be Safely Thus”
Macbeth, Act 3, scene 1, now king. Being king means nothing unless he is safe, and he is not safe while Banquo lives. It is the logic that drives every murder after the first.
“What’s Done Is Done”
Lady Macbeth, Act 3, scene 2, urging her husband to stop brooding: “Things without all remedy / Should be without regard. What’s done is done.” What cannot be changed should be forgotten. She will find that she cannot follow her own advice.
“O, Full of Scorpions Is My Mind, Dear Wife!”
Macbeth, in the same scene, tormented by fear of Banquo and his son. The image of a mind crawling with stinging creatures captures his constant anxiety as king.
“Cabined, Cribbed, Confined”
Macbeth, Act 3, scene 4, learning that Fleance has escaped: “But now I am cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in / To saucy doubts and fears.” He had hoped the murder would make him feel free; instead he feels trapped.
“Never Shake Thy Gory Locks at Me”
Macbeth, at the banquet, to Banquo’s ghost, which only he can see: “Thou canst not say I did it. Never shake / Thy gory locks at me.” Technically true, since hired murderers did the killing, and completely false.
“Blood Will Have Blood”
Macbeth, after the guests have gone: “It will have blood, they say; blood will have blood.” Murder calls for more murder, and the dead will find a way to be avenged.
“I Am in Blood Stepped in So Far”
Macbeth, a moment later: “I am in blood / Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o’er.” He is halfway across a river of blood, and going back is as hard as going on. He chooses to go on.
Act 4 Quotes
The cauldron, and a massacre.
“Double, Double Toil and Trouble”
The witches, Act 4, scene 1, circling their cauldron: “Double, double toil and trouble; / Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.” The line is often misquoted as “Bubble, bubble.” The same scene gives the famous list of ingredients, beginning “Eye of newt and toe of frog.”
“Something Wicked This Way Comes”
The Second Witch, sensing Macbeth’s approach: “By the pricking of my thumbs, / Something wicked this way comes.” Even the witches now recognize Macbeth as a fellow creature of evil.
“None of Woman Born Shall Harm Macbeth”
The second apparition, a bloody child, promising that “none of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth.” Macbeth takes it as a guarantee of safety. It proves to be a trick, since Macduff was not born in the natural way.
“At One Fell Swoop”
Macduff, Act 4, scene 3, learning that his wife and children have been murdered: “What, all my pretty chickens and their dam / At one fell swoop?” He pictures Macbeth as a bird of prey falling on a nest. “One fell swoop” now means simply “all at once,” but here it is a cry of grief.
“I Must Also Feel It as a Man”
Macduff, when Malcolm urges him to “Dispute it like a man”: “I shall do so, / But I must also feel it as a man.” Being a man, he insists, means feeling grief, not only fighting. Our guide to the characters of Macbeth explores this exchange.
Act 5 Quotes
Sleepwalking, despair, and the last fight.
“Out, Damned Spot”
Lady Macbeth, Act 5, scene 1, walking in her sleep: “Out, damned spot, out, I say!” She is trying to scrub away blood that only she can see. The woman who said a little water would clear them now cannot get her hands clean.
“Who Would Have Thought the Old Man to Have Had So Much Blood in Him?”
Lady Macbeth, in the same scene, reliving the night of Duncan’s murder. The detail that has stayed with her is the sheer amount of blood.
“The Thane of Fife Had a Wife”
Lady Macbeth, still sleepwalking: “The Thane of Fife had a wife. Where is she now?” The murder of Macduff’s family was her husband’s doing, not hers, but it haunts her too, repeating in her mind like a nursery rhyme.
“Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow”
Macbeth, Act 5, scene 5, on hearing that his wife is dead: “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow / Creeps in this petty pace from day to day / To the last syllable of recorded time.” The days crawl on, each one meaningless.
“Out, Out, Brief Candle!”
Macbeth, continuing: “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.” Life is short and flickering, like a candle, and as empty as an actor’s performance.
“Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing”
Macbeth, ending the speech: life “is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.” It is the bleakest statement in Shakespeare, from a man who has destroyed everything that once gave his life meaning.
“Untimely Ripped”
Macduff, Act 5, scene 8, answering Macbeth’s boast that he bears “a charmèd life” that cannot yield to one of woman born: “Macduff was from his mother’s womb / Untimely ripped.” He was delivered by cutting, before his natural birth. The last of the witches’ promises collapses.
“Lay On, Macduff”
Macbeth’s last words before the final fight: “Lay on, Macduff, / And damned be him that first cries ‘Hold, enough!’” “Lay on” means attack, strike hard. The line is often misquoted as “Lead on, Macduff,” which means almost the opposite.
A Closer Reading: From Prophecy to Nothing
Read in order, the famous lines of Macbeth tell a story about words themselves: they begin with the power to make things happen and end meaning nothing at all.
At the start, words are dangerous. The witches say “king hereafter,” and a loyal general begins to think of murder. Lady Macbeth wants her husband home so that she can “chastise with the valor of my tongue / All that impedes thee from the golden round,” and she does: her words talk him into the killing. Even Macbeth’s own speeches in Act 1 are full of forceful commands, to the stars, to his face, to his courage.
By the end, words have turned against him. The apparitions’ promises, which he took as guarantees, prove to be riddles, and he curses the “juggling fiends” who “keep the word of promise to our ear / And break it to our hope.” His wife’s bold words shrink to broken fragments spoken in her sleep. And his own great speech ends by declaring life “a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.” The man who was moved to murder by a few words ends up believing that no words mean anything.
Common Questions
The questions readers ask most often about the quotations of Macbeth, answered briefly.
What Is the Most Famous Quote from Macbeth?
“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,” from Macbeth’s speech in Act 5, scene 5, is the most famous, along with “Out, damned spot” and “Double, double toil and trouble.”
Is It “Bubble, Bubble” or “Double, Double”?
“Double, double toil and trouble; / Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.” “Bubble, bubble” is a common misquotation, probably because “bubble” appears at the end of the second line.
Is It “Lay On, Macduff” or “Lead On, Macduff”?
“Lay on, Macduff.” Macbeth is inviting Macduff to attack him, not to walk ahead. “Lead on, Macduff” is a misquotation.
What Does “Out, Damned Spot” Mean?
Lady Macbeth, sleepwalking, is trying to rub away a spot of blood she imagines on her hand. The spot stands for her guilt over Duncan’s murder, which she can no longer escape.
What Does “Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing” Mean?
That life is like a story told by a madman, noisy and dramatic but without any meaning. Macbeth says it after his wife’s death, when everything he killed for has become worthless to him.
Related Reading
Three pages that take the language of Macbeth further.