
Moby Dick

The skeleton dimensions I shall now proceed to set down are copied verbatim from my right arm, where I had them tattooed; as in my wild wanderings at that period, there was no other secure way of preserving such valuable statistics. But as I was crowded for space, and wished the other parts of my body to remain a blank page for a poem I was then
... See moreHerman Melville • Moby Dick
But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and deep inland there I still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy.
Herman Melville • Moby Dick
last, a swift, startling snap is heard; with a great swash the ship rolls upwards and backwards from the whale, and the triumphant tackle rises into sight dragging after it the disengaged semicircular end of the first strip of blubber. Now as the blubber envelopes the whale precisely as the rind does an orange, so is it stripped off from the body
... See moreHerman Melville • Moby Dick
though but a moment’s consideration will teach that, however baby man may brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering future, that science and skill may augment; yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest frigate he can make; nevertheless, by the
... See moreHerman Melville • Moby Dick
In a word, Frederick Cuvier’s Sperm Whale is not a Sperm Whale, but a squash.
Herman Melville • Moby Dick
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, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody’s expense but his own.
Herman Melville • Moby Dick
however it was, Flask, alas! was a butterless man!
Herman Melville • Moby Dick
I promise nothing complete; because any human thing supposed to be complete must for that very reason infallibly be faulty.
Herman Melville • Moby Dick
He looked like a man who had never cringed and never had had a creditor.