Macbeth Quotations (Act 1)

Macbeth Quotations (Act 1)

1. Banquo

   • "Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear Your favours nor your hate." (1,3)
   • "What, can the devil speak true?" (1,3)
   • "And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths, Win us with honest trifles, to betray's In deepest consequence." (1,3)
   • "There if I grow, The harvest is your own." (1,4)
   • "a peerless kinsman." (1,4) [said by Duncan about Banquo]

2. Lady Macbeth

   • "my dearest partner of greatness" (1,5) [in Macbeth's letter]
   • "yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' the milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way" (1,5)
   • "Art not without ambition, but without The illness should attend it" (1,5)
   • "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!" (1,5)
   • "O, never Shall sun that morrow see!" (1,5)
   • " look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under't" (1,5)
   • "Leave all the rest to me." (1,5)
   • "Art thou afeard To be the same in thine own act and valour As thou art in desire?" (1,7)
   • ""When you durst do it, then you were a man; (1,7)
   • "But screw your courage to the sticking-place, And we'll not fail." (1,7)
   • "we shall make our griefs and clamour roar" (1,7)

3. Macbeth

   • "Till he unseamed him from the nave to the chops" (1,2) [said by a soldier regarding Macbeth]
   • "So foul and fair a day I have not seen." (1,3)
   • "O valiant cousin! worthy gentleman!" (1,2) [said by Duncan regarding Macbeth]
   • "Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more" (1,3)
   • "If good, why do I yield to that suggestion Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair And make my seated heart knock at my ribs" (1,3)
   • "If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, Without my stir." (1,3)
   • "The service and the loyalty I owe, In doing it, pays itself." (1,4)
   • "Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires" (1,4)
   • "I have no spur / To prick the sides of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself / And falls on th'other." (1,7)
   • "We will proceed no further in this business: / He hath honour'd me of late; and I have bought / Golden opinions from all sorts of people," (1,7)
   • "I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none." (1,7)
   • "False face must hide what the false heart doth know." (1,7)

4. Duncan

   • "What he hath lost noble Macbeth hath won." (1,2)
   • "There's no art To find the mind's construction in the face: He was a gentleman on whom I built An absolute trust." (1,4)
   • "The sin of my ingratitude" (1,4)
   • "More is thy due than more than all can pay." (1,4)
   • "Honoured hostess!" (1,6)

5. The Witches

   • "Fair is foul, and foul is fair; / Hover through the fog and filthy air." (1,1)
   • "Killing swine. " (1,3)
   • "Peace! the charm's wound up." (1,3)
   • "So wither'd and so wild in their attire, That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth, And yet are on't?" (1,3) [said by Banquo about the Witches]
   • "you should be women, And yet your beards forbid me to interpret That you are so." (1,3) [said by Banquo about the Witches]