If I had been downright honest with myself, I would have seen very plainly in my heart that I did but half fancy being committed this way to so long a voyage, without once laying my eyes on the man who was to be the absolute dictator of it, so soon as the ship sailed out upon the open sea. But when a man suspects any wrong, it sometimes happens that if he be already involved in the matter, he insensibly strives to cover up his suspicions even from himself. And much this way it was with me. I said nothing, and tried to think nothing.

...in certain moods, no man can weigh this world without throwing in something, somehow like Original Sin, to strike the uneven balance.

They talk of the dignity of work. The dignity is in leisure.

Nobody is so heartily despised as a pusillanimous, lazy, good-for-nothing, land-lubber; a sailor has no bowels of compassion for him.

The profound calm which only apparently precedes and prophesies of the storm, is perhaps more awful than the storm itself; for indeed, the calm is but the wrapper and envelop of the storm, and contains it in itself, as the seemingly harmless rifle holds the fatal powder, and the ball, and the explosion.

A good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing.

One of the coolest and wisest hours a man has, is just after he awakes in the morning.