Chapter 16: Day 19: The Ship “I know, too, that ever since he lost his leg last voyage by that accursed whale, he’s been a kind of...

Chapter 16: Day 18: The Ship “For all men tragically great are made so through a certain morbidness. Be sure of this, O young ambition,...

Chapter 10: Day 17: A Bosom Friend “I was a good Christian; born and bred in the bosom of the infallible Presbyterian Church. How then...

Chapter 10: Day 16: A Bosom Friend “[Queequeg’s] countenance yet had a something in it which was by no means disagreeable. You cannot...

Chapter 9: Day 15: The Sermon “Woe to him who seeks to please rather than appal! Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness!...

Chapter 9: Day 14: The Sermon “Jonah feels the heralding presentiment of that stifling hour, when the whale shall hold him in the...

Chapter 9: Day 13: The Sermon “For it is particularly written, shipmates, as if it were a thing not to be overlooked in this history,...

Chapter 9: Day 12: The Sermon “But all the things that God would have us do are hard for us to do – remember that – and hence, he oftener...

Chapter 8: Day 11: The Pulpit “I was not prepared to see Father Mapple, after gaining the height, slowly turn round, and stooping over...

Chapter 7: Day 10: The Chapel “Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death. Methinks that what they call my shadow...

Chapter 7: Day 9: The Chapel “How is it that we still refuse to be comforted for those who we nevertheless maintain are dwelling in...

Chapter 5: Day 8: Breakfast “A good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing; the more’s the pity. So, if any...

Chapter 3: Day 7: The Spouter-Inn “And what is it, thought I, after all! It’s only his outside; a man can be honest in any sort of skin....

Chapter 1: Day 6: Loomings “But as for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and...

Chapter 1: Day 5: Loomings “But being paid, - what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really...

Chapter 1: Day 4: Loomings “And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild...

Chapter 1: Day 3: Loomings I haven’t even finished the second page of the book yet! Ishmael continues directing my attention to the...

Chapter 1: Loomings Right after Ishmael directs us to call him Ishmael, he shares that he sometimes gets depressed. And when he does, he...

Chapter 1: Loomings Musing: Three words begin a mighty book. Three words parsed to death by scholars over the years. Three words seen in...

From Chapter 104 The Fossil Whale One often hears of writers that rise and swell with their subject, though it may seem but an ordinary...