Moby Dick: or, the White Whale

There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness.

Oh, Ahab! what shall be grand in thee, it must needs be plucked at from the skies, and dived for in the deep, and featured in the unbodied air!

Let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory; I look deep down and do believe."

I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing. Such a waggish leering as lurks in all your horribles!

Oh! many are the Fin-Backs, and many are the Dericks, my friend.

Ah, God! what trances of torments does that man endure who is consumed with one unachieved revengeful desire. He sleeps with clenched hands; and wakes with his own bloody nails in his palms.

so, in his inclement, howling old age, Ahab's soul, shut up in the caved trunk of his body, there fed upon the sullen paws of its gloom!

Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.

Though in many of its aspects this visible world seems formed in love, the invisible spheres were formed in fright.