When we affect to condemn savages, we should remember that by doing so we asperse our own progenitors; for they were savages also.Who can swear that among the naked British barbarians sent to Rome to be stared at more than 1500 years ago, the ancestor of Bacon might not have been found?--Why, among the very Thugs of India, or the bloody Dyaks of Borneo, exists the germ of all that is intellectually elevated and grand. We are all of us--Anglo-Saxons, Dyaks and Indians--sprung from one head and made in one image.

Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins?

Out of the trunk, the branches grow; out of them, the twigs. So, in productive subjects, grow the chapters.

Queequeg was a native of Kokovoko, an island far away to the West and South. It is not down in any map; true places never are.

Will you, or will you not, quit me? I now demanded in a sudden passion, advancing close to him. "I would prefer not to quit you", he replied, gently emphasizing the not.

Only the man who says no is free

If there be any thing a man might well pray against, that thing is the responsive gratification of some of the devoutest prayers of his youth.