"In times of strong emotion mankind disdain all base considerations; but such times are evanescent. The permanent constitutional...

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy...

"God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a...

"All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and...

"Oh! time was, when as the sunrise nobly spurred me, so the sunset soothed. No more. This lovely light, it lights not me; all loveliness...

"Stand up amid the general hurricane, thy one tossed sapling cannot, Starbuck!" Ahab is the speaker of this quote. He has just convinced...

"All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but...

"The most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but an utterly fearless...

"Better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety!" This line, indeed...

"For small erections may be finished by their first architects; grand ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me...

"And once for all, let me tell thee and assure thee, young man, it’s better to sail with a moody good captain than a laughing bad one."...

"In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at...

"How it is that we still refuse to be comforted for those who we nevertheless maintain are dwelling in unspeakable bliss; why do all the...

"But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope." I mean, come on. This...

"If any one man, in his own proper person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, let him not be backward, but let him cheerfully allow...

"What’s all this fuss I have been making about, thought I to myself—the man’s a human being just as I am: he has just as much reason to...

"I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts. Not ignoring...

Preamble - It is time to look at the more pleasant aspects of my favorite novel and abandon the comparisons between Ahab and _rump. I...

"For as the swift monster drags you deeper and deeper into the frantic shoal, you bid adieu to circumspect life and only exist in a...

"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."...