I called to the other men that the sky was clearing, and then a moment later I realized that what I had seen was not a rift in the clouds but the white crest of an enormous wave.

Teachers should be very careful not to spoil their pupils' taste for poetry for all time by making it a task and an imposition.

From the sentimental point of view, it is the last great Polar journey that can be made.

I seemed to vow to myself that some day I would go to the region of ice and snow and go on and on till I came to one of the poles of the earth, the end of the axis upon which this great round ball turns.

I thought you'd rather have a live donkey than a dead lion.

One feels 'the dearth of human words, the roughness of mortal speech' in trying to describe things intangible.

The noise resembles the roar of heavy, distant surf. Standing on the stirring ice one can imagine it is disturbed by the breathing and tossing of a mighty giant below.