Ishmael

"The whale, as it appears to be, ought to be examined."

"Aye, aye! And thus the invisible spheres were formed."

"The whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard."

"Thus we mortals cross the seas and visit strange lands."

"I am not a thin man but broad in the beam."

"In some certain sense, the whole visible universe is but an illusion."

"Call me Ishmael."

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

"I try the locked drawers and the cupboards; but the cabin belongs to Captain Ahab and I have no business with it."

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

"It is the whiteness of the whale that appals me."

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

"The Pequod's crew were nearly all Isolatoes too, I and my companions were joint wooden-legged kings all, owning allegiance to none but the Captain of the Pequod."

"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; I account it high time to get to sea."

"A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy."

"This island of Nantucket must have been laid out originally in the moonlight."

"The monkey-rope was fast at both ends; truly this double bondage seemed strange."

"What things real are there, but imponderable thoughts?"

"Some uncertain wakings he would have; some slumbering; rouse himself as if out of a dream."

"We are all somehow docked together; we leak as we go."

"He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down."

"Meditation and water are wedded for ever."

"The same waves wash the moles of the New York stock list and the sod of the five points."

"Queequeg is my well-beloved friend and brother."

"There is a brotherhood between all men who meet in darkness."

"The sea had jeeringly kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his soul."

"Now I stand upon this mast-head alone, and feel as if the whole world were but my oyster."

"For as in this world, head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern."

"To be enraged with your enemy is to be injured by him."

"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."