"There's something ever egotistical in mountain-tops and towers, and all other grand and lofty things; look here,-three peaks as proud as...

"There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seems to speak of some hidden soul beneath [ . ....

"For whatever is truly wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books. And the drawing near of Death, which alike...

"Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee; as for the time it did me. There is a wisdom that is woe; but...

"Look not too long in the face of the fire, O man! Never dream with thy hand on the helm! Turn not thy back to the compass; accept the...

"Wrapped, for that interval, in darkness myself, I but the better saw the redness, the madness, the ghastliness of others. The continual...

"Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a...

"Who would think, then, that such fine ladies and gentlemen should regale themselves with an essence found in the inglorious bowels of a...

"What was America in 1492 but a Loose-Fish, in which Columbus struck the Spanish standard by way of wailing it for his royal master and...

"I. A Fast-Fish belongs to the party fast to it. II. A Loose-Fish is fair game for anybody who can soonest catch it. But what plays the...

"Another point of difference between the male and female schools is still more characteristic of the sexes. Say you strike a...

"But this occasional timidity is characteristic of almost all herding creatures. Witness, too, all human beings, how when herded together...

"For d'ye see, rainbows do not visit the clear air; they only irradiate vapor. And so, through all the thick mists of the dim doubts in...

The whale "is both ponderous and profound. And I am convinced that from the heads of all ponderous profound beings, such as Plato,...

"My dear sir, in this world it is not so easy to settle these plain things. I have ever found your plain things the knottiest of all. And...

"It is plain, then, that phrenologically the head of this Leviathan, in the creature's living intact state, is an entire delusion. As for...

"For I believe that much of a man's character will be found betokened in his backbone. I would rather feel your spine than your skull,...

"Therefore, though I am but ill qualified for a pioneer, in the application of these two semi-sciences to the whale, I will do my...

"Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without being...

"So long as a man's eyes are open in the light, the act of seeing is involuntary; that is, he cannot then help mechanically seeing...