The Past is the textbook of tyrants; the Future is the Bible of the Free.

And tell him to paint me a sign, with-no suicides permitted here, and no smloing in the parlor; might as well kill both birds at once.

A ship is a bit of terra firma cut off from the main; it is a state in itself; and the captain is its king.

Men there are, who having quite done with the world, all its merely worldly contents are become so far indifferent, that they carelittle of what mere worldly imprudence they may be guilty.

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.

All experience teaches that, whenever there is a great national establishment, employing large numbers of officials, the public must be reconciled to support many incompetent men; for such is the favoritism and nepotism always prevailing in the purlieus of these establishments, that some incompetent persons are always admitted, to the exclusion of many of the worthy.

True places are not found on maps.