Ishmael

"Some certain significance lurks in all things, else all things are little worth"

"The great Leviathan is that one creature in the world which must remain unpainted to the last"

"There is a certain madness in the pursuit of truth"

"To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme"

"The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever"

"A whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard"

"There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness"

"The very essence of the tragic lies in the necessity of the struggle"

"What is the will and the heart of man but a small craft in the midst of the elements?"

"The Pequod's decks were cleared like a slaughter-house"

"There is something ever more piquant about the hunt of an armed foe"

"One damp, drizzly November in my soul"

"Here then is the highest honor that a man can achieve: to be remembered by his deeds"

"He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the rage and hate"

"Some men are born with the gift of the sea"

"The great Whale himself was not more firmly rooted in the imagination"

"In the soul of man there is a hunger for the infinite"

"To know him, you must know the sea that bears him"

"No man is an island unto himself"

"The hunt was eternal, without beginning and without end"

"All hell broke loose upon the deck of the Pequod"

"The line is rope; the rope is life"

"What drives a man to madness but the pursuit of a thing he cannot have?"

"The white whale is not merely a whale, but a symbol of all that is unfathomable"

"In the depths of the ocean lies truth beyond mortal comprehension"

"A man's fate is written upon the waves long before he sets sail"

"The whale's whiteness is both beautiful and terrible to behold"

"There is no escape from the sea once you have answered its call"

"To ride upon the back of destiny is to court with death"

"The compass of the soul points always toward the infinite"