Study Help Famous Quotes

Shakespeare coined many popular phrases that are still commonly used today. Here are some examples of Shakespeare's most familiar quotes from Macbeth. You just might be surprised to learn of all the everyday sayings that originally came from Shakespeare!

"Fair is foul, and foul is fair." (Act I, Scene I)

"When the battle's lost and won." (Act I, Scene I)

"When shall we three meet again in thunder, lightning, or in rain? When the hurlyburly 's done, When the battle 's lost and won." (Act I, Scene I)

"If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me." (Act I, Scene III)


"Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' the milk of human kindness." (Act I, Scene V)

"Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under't." (Act I, Scene V)

"I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none." (Act I, Scene VII)

"Screw your courage to the sticking-place." (Act I, Scene VII)

"I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself, and falls on the other." (Act I, Scene VII)

"Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand?" (Act II, Scene I)

"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" (Act II, Scene II)

"There's daggers in men's smiles." (Act II, Scene III)

"What's done is done." (Act III, Scene II)

"By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes." (Act IV, Scene I)

"Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble." (Act IV, Scene I)

"Out, damned spot! out, I say!" (Act V, Scene I).

"All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand." (Act V, Scene I)


"I bear a charmed life." (Act V, Scene VIII)

Pop Quiz!

How does Lady Macbeth explain Macbeth's strange behavior at the banquet?



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