Macbeth Quotes

The 8 most famous lines from William Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1606), each with its speaker and the scene it belongs to. These are the quotes readers underline, copy into essays and put on walls - gathered in one place, explained in a line.

• “Fair is foul, and foul is fair.”

  - The Witches. The opening scene's paradox — the whole play's moral weather forecast in six words.

• “All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be king hereafter!”

  - The Witches. The prophecy on the heath: one hailing exactly what he wants, another planting what will undo him.

• “Is this a dagger which I see before me?”

  - Macbeth. The soliloquy before Duncan's murder — a mind hallucinating the weapon it has decided to use.

• “Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?”

  - Macbeth. Immediately after the murder, in the scene where his hands already cannot be clean and he knows it.

• “Out, damned spot! out, I say!”

  - Lady Macbeth. The sleepwalking scene: guilt scrubbing at invisible blood in front of witnesses who cannot wake her.

• “Double, double toil and trouble; / Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.”

  - The Witches. The cauldron incantation — the spell every parody of witchcraft has been quoting since 1606.

• “Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, / And then is heard no more.”

  - Macbeth. The 'Tomorrow' speech after his queen dies — the most famous nihilism in English, delivered mid-battle.

• “Lay on, Macduff, / And damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!'”

  - Macbeth. His last lines — often misquoted as 'Lead on, Macduff', which reverses the entire meaning.

Why these lines survive

William Shakespeare’s sentences earn their fame by compression: each line carries the whole book’s argument in a form you can carry in your pocket. Read in order, the 8 quotes above also sketch the novel’s shape - the world it opens, the pressure it applies, the note it ends on. If you meet them before the book, nothing is spoiled beyond mood; if you meet them after, each one lands like a place you have been.

Quote collectors: pair this page with the Macbeth quiz to see which lines actually stuck, the book club questions when you want to argue about them, or how long the reread takes - about 1 hour and 16 minutes at an average pace. If the lines did their job and you want more of the same nerve, the books like Macbeth list is next.

Want the whole shelf’s lines? Our William Shakespeare plays in order guide lists every book.

How to use a quotes page

Three honest uses. Before reading: skim the first two quotes to taste the prose - if the voice does not pull you, the book will not either. During: mark which quote you actually reach in the text, because the distance between famous line and lived scene is where a book keeps its secrets. After: pick the one quote you would defend at dinner and check it against the discussion questions - a quote you can argue about is a quote you understood. What a quotes page is not for is replacing the book; five lines of William Shakespeare are an invitation, not a summary.

More quote collections

Frankenstein quotes, Dracula quotes, The Picture of Dorian Gray quotes, Wuthering Heights quotes - or browse quotes from all 133 classics. Then see which of them stuck on the original book quiz.

Frequently asked questions