Moby-Dick; or, The Whale Quotes

The greater idiot ever scolds the lesser.

Yet habit—strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?

Truth hath no confines.

Thus we see how that the spine of even the hugest of living things tapers off at last into simple child’s play.

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 cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick.

We ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.

My body is but the lees of my better being.

Let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory; I look deep down and do believe.

Top-heavy was the ship as a dinnerless student with all Aristotle in his head.

To think’s audacity. God only has that right and privilege. Thinking is, or ought to be, a coolness and a calmness; and our poor hearts throb, and our poor brains beat too much for that.

To the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.

To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it.