I try all things, I achieve what I can.
In man or fish, wriggling is a sign of inferiority.
All mortal greatness is but disease.
Be sure of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease.
In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without passport whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers.
Speak, thou vast and venerable head, muttered Ahab, which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in th...
It is not down on any map; true places never are.
Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee; as for the time it did me. There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in som...
Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunk Christian.
A good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing--mores the pity.
Genius is full of trash.
Hope is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity.
…for it is often to be observed of the shallower men, that they are the very last to despond. It is the glory of the bladder that nothing can sink it; it is the reproach of a box of treasure, that onc...
Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear...
Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm? But if the great sun move not of himself; but is an errand-boy in heaven; nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible power; how th...
Ignorance is the parent of fear ...
I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing.
With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship
Is he mad? Anyway there's something on his mind, as sure as there must be something on a deck when it cracks.
Are not half our lives spent in reproaches for foregone actions, of the true nature and consequences of which we were wholly ignorant at the time?