Because no man can ever feel his own identity aright except his eyes be closed; as if darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part.

I do not think I have any uncharitable prejudice against the rattlesnake, still, I should not like to be one.

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.

Is it possible, after all, that spite of bricks and shaven faces, this world we live in is brimmed with wonders, and I and all mankind, beneath our garbs of common-placeness, conceal enigmas that the stars themselves, and perhaps the highest seraphim can not resolve?

To be a born American citizen seems a guarantee against pauperism; and this, perhaps, springs from the virtue of a vote.

Better be an old maid, a woman with herself as a husband, than the wife of a fool; and Solomon more than hints that all men are fools; and every wise man knows himself to be one.

Can it be, that the Greek grammarians invented their dual number for the particular benefit of twins?