Widely regarded as 's magnum opus and one of the greatest American novels, was published in 1851 during the American Renaissance. Set aboard the whaling ship Pequod, Moby-Dick follows Captain Ahab and his quest for revenge against an elusive white whale. Narrated by the character Ishmael, a young boy on the ship, the story centers on the characters Queequeg, a skilled and tattooed harpooner, and Starbuck, the rational first mate who is often in conflict with Captain Ahab. Along with obsession and vengeance, the novel explores the importance of friendship and the impact of social class. Drawing heavily from the perspective of experienced sailors, Moby-Dick also offers insights into human nature and confronts the consequences of human actions on the natural world.
Below are 30+ of the best quotes reflecting Moby-Dick's themes of human nature, determination, revenge, obsession, and madness.
The best quotes from Moby-Dick on human nature
“I promise nothing complete; because any human thing supposed to be complete, must for that very reason infallibly be faulty.”
“It's only his outside; a man can be honest in any sort of skin.”
“See how elastic our prejudices grow when once love comes to bend them.”
“For we are all killers, on land and on sea; Bonapartes and Sharks included.”
“Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it.”
“Because no man can ever feel his own identity aright except his eyes be closed; as if darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part.”
“For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half-known life.”
“Real strength never impairs beauty or harmony, but it often bestows it; and in everything imposingly beautiful, strength has much to do with the magic.”
“There is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid.”
The best quotes from Moby-Dick on spirituality and the natural world
“God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart forever; the vulture the very creature he creates.”
“Thought he, it's a wicked world in all meridians; I'll die a pagan.”
