Moby Dick, penned by Herman Melville in 1851, is among the towering masterpieces of American literature.
This legendary novel is not only a story about a man hunting a whale. At its core, it explores deep themes of obsession and the struggle between man and nature.
Through its rich symbolism, complicated characters, and philosophical thoughts, “Moby Dick” explores the existential questions and moral predicaments that will strike a chord with you
Top Moby Dick Quotes
“Call me Ishmael.” – Ishmael
“From hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool!” – Captain Ahab
“It is not down on any map; true places never are.” – Ishmael
“Ahab’s full lunacy subsided not, but deepeningly contracted; like the unabated Hudson, when that noble Northman flows narrowly, but unfathomably through the Highland gorge.” – Narrator
“Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunk Christian.” – Ishmael
“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.” – Stubb
“There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness.” – Ishmael
“I try all things, I achieve what I can.” – Ishmael
“To the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.” – Captain Ahab
“The sea is as near as we come to another world.” – Ishmael
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Moby Dick Quotes on the Obsession of Captain Ahab
“I’d strike the sun if it insulted me.” – Captain Ahab
“Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted me.” – Captain Ahab
“All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks.” – Captain Ahab
“Oh, Ahab! what shall be grand in thee, it must be plucked at from the skies and dived for in the deep, and featured in the unbodied air!” – Ishmael
“There is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men.” – Captain Ahab
“He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.” – Narrator
“Let’s see now if ye haven’t fished him dead, Japan!” – Captain Ahab
“What I’ve dared, I’ve willed; and what I’ve willed, I’ll do! They think me mad—Starbuck does; but I’m demoniac, I am madness maddened!” – Captain Ahab
“Look, ye! all visible objects are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask.” – Captain Ahab
“Sleep? That bed is a coffin, and those are winding sheets. I do not sleep, I die.” – Captain Ahab
Moby Dick Quotes on the Sea and Adventure
“To the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool!” – Captain Ahab
“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 of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.” – Ishmael
“Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded forever.” – Ishmael
“I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.” – Ishmael
“There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath.” – Ishmael
“For my part, I abominate all honourable respectable toils, trials, and tribulations of every kind whatsoever. It is quite as much as I can do to take care of myself, without taking care of ships, barques, brigs, schooners, and what not.” – Ishmael
“A whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.” – Ishmael
“Heaven have mercy on us all—Presbyterians and Pagans alike—for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.” – Ishmael
“See! that white water!” – Captain Ahab
“Land ho!” – Lookout
Moby Dick Quotes on Fate and Destiny
“It was the whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled me.” – Ishmael
“Fate, silent, relentless Fate has overtaken us; let us hear the echoes of our devious paddles.” – Ishmael
“I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where’er I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them; but first I pass.” – Ahab
“There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody’s expense but his own.” – Ishmael
“It is the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ships’ cables and hawsers. A Polar wind blows through it, and birds of prey hover over it.” – Ishmael
“I try all things, I achieve what I can.” – Ishmael
“There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness.” – Ishmael
“Let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory; I look deep down and do believe.” – Ishmael
“Aye, aye! and I’ll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition’s flames before I give him up.” – Captain Ahab
“And as for perils of the sea, what perils are there to a man whose life is a continual war with the elements?” – Captain Ahab
Moby Dick Quotes on the Mystery of the Whale
“All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask.” – Captain Ahab
“It was the whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled me.” – Ishmael
“Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure.” – Ishmael
“Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance.” – Captain Ahab
“Oh! the rare old Whale, mid storm and gale In his ocean home will be A giant in might, where might is right, And King of the boundless sea.” – Whale Song
“There she blows!—there she blows! A hump like a snow-hill! It is Moby Dick!” – Lookout
“He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it.” – Captain Ahab
“Lo! the unoffending sharks, they pounce upon them; savagely they gulp down fresh draughts of my blood!” – Captain Ahab
“But to me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond. But ’tis enough.” – Captain Ahab
“Diving beneath the settling ship, the whale ran quivering along its keel; but turning under water swiftly shot to the surface again, far off the other bow, but within a few yards of Ahab’s boat.” – Narrator
Moby Dick Quotes on Brotherhood and Camaraderie
“A good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing; the more’s the pity.” – Stubb
“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.” – Ishmael
“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.” – Stubb
“For when three days flow together in one continuous intense pursuit; be sure the first is the morning, the second the noon, and the third the evening and the end of that thing—be that end what it will.” – Narrator
“Struck dead by an angel of God! Yet the angel must hang!” – Captain Ahab
“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.” – Ishmael
“Queequeg, Starbuck, and all the rest of our crew, were my brothers.” – Ishmael
“Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children’s children.” – Captain Ahab
“No man prefers to sleep two in a bed. In fact, you would a good deal rather not sleep with your own brother.” – Ishmael
“So that when I shall hereafter detail to you all the specialities and concentrations of potency everywhere lurking in this expansive monster; when I shall show you some of the more inconsiderable brags of Moby Dick, you will feel the more bound to own allegiance to him.” – Captain Ahab
Moby Dick Quotes on Man vs. Nature
“I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where’er I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them; but first I pass.” – Ahab
“The sea is as near as we come to another world.” – Ishmael
“Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries—stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water.” – Ishmael
“Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure.” – Ishmael
“Against the wind he now steers for the open jaw.” – Narrator
“There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath.” – Ishmael
“He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.” – Narrator
“The rushing Pequod, freighted with savages, and laden with fire, and burning a corpse, and plunging into that blackness of darkness, seemed the material counterpart of her monomaniac commander’s soul.” – Narrator
“The great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.” – Narrator
“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.” – Stubb
Moby Dick Quotes on Philosophy and Existence
“There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody’s expense but his own.” – Ishmael
“To be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous.” – Starbuck
“All truth is profound.” – Ishmael
“Ahab’s full lunacy subsided not, but deepeningly contracted; like the unabated Hudson, when that noble Northman flows narrowly, but unfathomably through the Highland gorge.” – Narrator
“There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness.” – Ishmael
“I try all things, I achieve what I can.” – Ishmael
“To the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.” – Captain Ahab
“Let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory; I look deep down and do believe.” – Ishmael
“Ignorance is the parent of fear.” – Ishmael
“Heaven have mercy on us all—Presbyterians and Pagans alike—for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.” – Ishmael
Moby Dick Quotes on Fear and Courage
“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.” – Stubb
“To the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.” – Captain Ahab
“Ignorance is the parent of fear.” – Ishmael
“There is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men.” – Captain Ahab
“Heaven have mercy on us all—Presbyterians and Pagans alike—for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.” – Ishmael
“Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunk Christian.” – Ishmael
“Aye, aye! and I’ll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition’s flames before I give him up.” – Captain Ahab
“I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where’er I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them; but first I pass.” – Ahab
“It is not down in any map; true places never are.” – Ishmael
“Courage, man, the hurt cannot be much.” – Starbuck
Moby Dick Quotes on Suffering and Endurance
“He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.” – Narrator
“There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness.” – Ishmael
“All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask.” – Captain Ahab
“Let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory; I look deep down and do believe.” – Ishmael
“A dead whale or a stove boat!” – Whalers’ Proverb
“Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted me.” – Captain Ahab
“Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air.” – Ishmael
“For there is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men.” – Captain Ahab
“The try-works are planted between the foremast and mainmast, the most roomy part of the deck.” – Narrator
“From hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.” – Captain Ahab
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Final Thoughts
Despite being over a century old, “Moby Dick” is still a groundbreaking work in the canon of great American literature, a complicated narrative filled with symbolism.
The author’s thorough descriptions of whaling and deep philosophical introspection offer you a window into the 1800s maritime life.
The novel‘s exploration of themes such as obsession, revenge, and the pursuit of meaning in an unconcerned universe will leave a lasting effect on you. It challenges you to think about your own white whales, those personal obsessions that steer and define your actions.