Macbeth Quotes

🗡️ Ambition & Power
 

🧾 “Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself and falls on the other.”

– Act I, Scene VII

• Meaning: Macbeth admits that ambition alone is pushing him to murder Duncan, and that ambition often causes people to overreach and fall.

• Context: He debates whether to kill Duncan and realizes he has no solid reason except ambition.
  
   

🧾 “To be thus is nothing, but to be safely thus.”

– Act III, Scene I

• Meaning: It means nothing just to be king — Macbeth wants to feel secure in his position.

• Context: Macbeth begins to fear Banquo and his descendants, realizing his throne isn’t secure.
  
   

🧙 Fate & the Supernatural
 

🧾 “Fair is foul, and foul is fair.”

– Act I, Scene I

• Meaning: Good is bad and bad is good — appearances are deceptive.

• Context: Spoken by the witches at the very beginning, setting the tone for a world of moral confusion.
  
   

🧾 “All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor! Hail to thee that shalt be king hereafter!”

– Act I, Scene III
Meaning: The witches greet Macbeth with titles he has and will soon receive.

• Context: These prophetic lines spark Macbeth’s ambition and desire for power.
  
   

🧾 “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.”

– Act IV, Scene I

• Meaning: A sense of evil is approaching.

• Context: The witches sense Macbeth’s approach — ironically, he has become the wicked one.
  
  🔪 Guilt & Conscience
   

🧾 “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?”

– Act II, Scene II

• Meaning: No amount of water can wash away his guilt.

• Context: Right after murdering Duncan, Macbeth is horrified by what he’s done.
  
   

🧾 “Out, damned spot! Out, I say!”

– Act V, Scene I

• Meaning: Lady Macbeth imagines she still sees Duncan’s blood on her hands.

• Context: In a sleepwalking scene, her guilt has overwhelmed her.
  
   

🧾 “What’s done cannot be undone.”

– Act V, Scene I

• Meaning: There’s no going back after their crimes.

• Context: Lady Macbeth is resigned to the consequences of their actions during her mental breakdown.
   

🕰️ Time & Mortality
 

🧾 “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…”

– Act V, Scene V

• Meaning: Time creeps slowly, life is repetitive and meaningless.

• Context: Macbeth mourns Lady Macbeth’s death, expressing his despair and disillusionment.
   

🧾 “Life’s but a walking shadow… a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

– Act V, Scene V

• Meaning: Life is meaningless, noisy, and short.

• Context: Macbeth reflects on the futility of existence after all his ambition and bloodshed.
   

🧠 Madness & Paranoia
 

🧾 “O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!”

– Act III, Scene II

• Meaning: Macbeth’s mind is poisoned with fear and anxiety.

• Context: He is obsessed with Banquo and Fleance as threats to his crown.

 

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🧾 “Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand?”

– Act II, Scene I

• Meaning: Macbeth hallucinates a dagger leading him to kill Duncan.

• Context: Just before the murder, showing how the act haunts him even before it happens.