“...the great floodgates of the wonder-world swung open...”

“It is the easiest thing in the world for a man to look as if he had a great secret in him.”

“I wonder, Flask, whether the world is anchored anywhere; if she is, she swings with an uncommon long cable, though.”

“It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter's, and like the great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own.”

“...what are the comprehensible terrors of man compared with the interlinked terrors and wonders of God!”

“All mortal greatness is but disease.”

“all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea”