Moby Dick

He minds you somewhat of a juggler, balancing a long staff on his chin.

There go the ships; there is that Leviathan whom thou hast made to play therein

and beyond, a black Angel of Doom was beating a book in a pulpit.

Look not too long in the face of the fire, O man! Never dream with thy hand on the helm!

the Right Whale’s head bears a rather inelegant resemblance to a gigantic galliot-toed shoe

far too rich to supply a substitute for butter

others were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces

his distended eyes turned full upon old Ahab

what disordered slippery decks of a whale-ship are comparable to the unspeakable carrion of those battle-fields

By and by

Ginger-jub! you gingerly rascal!

Up from the spray of thy ocean-perishing—straight up, leaps thy apotheosis!

a whale must be near

Hand it me

he slewed round his boat and made after the leviathan lamp-feeders

If you attentively regard almost any quadruped’s spine, you will be struck with the resemblance of its vertebræ to a strung necklace of dwarfed skulls

Time itself now held long breaths with keen suspense.

Heaven have mercy on us all—Presbyterians and Pagans alike—for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending

we are curing the wound, when whang come the arrows all round; Sagittarius, or the Archer, is amusing himself

this mere painstaking burrower and grub-worm of a poor devil of a Sub-Sub

the profound calm which only apparently precedes and prophesies of the storm, is perhaps more awful than the storm itself

The next day was exceedingly still and sultry

For the present other matters press, and the best we can do now for the head, is to pray heaven the tackles may hold.

Hurrah! this is the way a fellow feels when he’s going to Davy Jones—all a rush down an endless inclined plane!

treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure

curling and twisting like a nest of anacondas, as if blindly to clutch at any hapless object within reach

Look sharp, all of ye! There are whales hereabouts!

man is a money-making animal, which propensity too often interferes with his benevolence

it’s better to sail with a moody good captain than a laughing bad one

It should not have been omitted that previous to completely stripping the body of the leviathan, he was beheaded.