"To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many...

"So magnifying, is the virtue of a large and liberal theme! We expand to its bulk."

"One often hears of writers that rise and swell with their subject, though it may seem but an ordinary one."

“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our...

"Only in the heart of quickest perils; only when within the eddyings of his angry flukes; only on the profound unbounded sea, can the...

"Since Jonah, few whalemen have penetrated very far beneath the skin of the adult whale."

"For, say they, when cruising in an empty ship, if you can get nothing better out of the world, get a good dinner out of it, at least....

"There’s another rendering now; but still one text. All sorts of men in one kind of world, you see."

"Born in throes, it is fit that man should live in pains and die in pangs!"

"The firm tower, that is Ahab; the volcano, that is Ahab; the courageous, the undaunted, and victorious fowl, that, too, is Ahab; all are...