Moby Dick doesn't bite so much as he swallows.

It sometimes ends in uncommon elevation, indeed; but only at the gallows. And besides, when a man is elevated in that odd fashion, he has no proper foundation for his superior altitude. Hence, I conclude, that in boasting himself to be high lifted above a whaleman, in that assertion the pirate has no solid basis to stand on.

Oh, horrible vultureism of earth! from which not the mightiest whale is free.

He offered a prayer so deeply devout that he seemed kneeling and praying at the bottom of the sea.

Round the World! There is much in that sound to inspire proud feelings; but whereto does all that circumnavigation conduct? Only through numberless perils to the very point whence we started, where those that we left behind secure, were all the time before us.

Of all tools used in the shadow of the moon, men are the most apt to get out of order.

It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.