He seemed to take to me quite as naturally and unbiddenly as I to him; and when our smoke was over, he pressed his forehead against mine, clasped me round the waist, and said that henceforth we were married.

I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best.

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.

For my part I love sleepy fellows, and the more ignorant the better. Damn your wide-awake and knowing chaps. As for sleepiness, itis one of the noblest qualities of humanity. There is something sociable about it, too. Think of those sensible & sociable millions of good fellows all taking a good long friendly snooze together, under the sod--no quarrels, no imaginary grievances, no envies, heart-burnings, & thinking how much better that other chap is off--none of this: but all equally free-&-easy, they sleep away & reel off their nine knots an hour, in perfect amity.

Soldier or sailor, the fighting man is but a fiend; and the staff and body-guard of the Devil musters many a baton.

One trembles to think of that mysterious thing in the soul, which seems to acknowledge no human jurisdiction, but in spite of the individual's own innocence self, will still dream horrid dreams, and mutter unmentionable thoughts.

He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness. And if it be said, that continual success is a proof that a man wisely knows his powers,--it is only to be added, that, in that case, he knows them to be small.