Ishmael

"The ocean cares nothing for the dreams of men"

"In the face of the whale, all human pride is humbled"

"The hunt continues even in death, echoing through eternity"

"Some things are destined to be pursued, though never caught"

"Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian."

"Call me Ishmael."

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

"There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke."

"The Sperm Whale of the present day is as much altered from his Miocene predecessor as man is from Adam."

"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul."

"A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed upon that worm."

"Who ain't a slave? Tell me that."

"I try the practice of truth and the abstinence of lies."

"Meditation and water are wedded for ever."

"For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy."

"There are some certain things that cast shadows back; that is, give out a shadow from an object whose back is to the sun."

"I now leave my cetological system standing thus unfinished, even as the great Cathedral of Cologne was left with the crane still standing upon its top."

"The same waves wash the moles of the Nile and the palaces of Versailles."

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

"All miserable air-breathing mortals live enveloped in whale-lines."

"Some think the great Leviathan is from the days of Creation herself."

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

"Here is a vital point; as out-jetting nose is to the bloodhound, so to the whale is his tail-flukes his principal organ of direction."

"Man's one only real comforter is his pipe."

"O Nature, and O soul of man! how far beyond all utterance are your linked analogies!"

"The Whale as he appears in the heavens, and in the Psalms, is as much as the symbol of the highest religious fervency."

"Small erections may be finished by their first architects; grand ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity."

"I try the truth; I try all things, I achieve what I can; but I can only swear, not shout, my answer."

"The monkey-rope was fast to both of us; so that we were bound together as with a wedding-knot."

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