A Quote by Nathaniel Philbrick

As Herman Melville wrote of that seagoing monster of a man Captain Ahab, “All mortal greatness is but disease.

Nathaniel Philbrick

Quote Topics

Ahab Captain Disease Greatness Man Melville Monster Mortal Wrote

Quote Author

Nathaniel Philbrick
American - Author
Born: June 11, 1956

Captain Ahab was a man possessed with an obsessional drive to pursue the white whale which had harmed him - which had torn his leg out - to the ends of the Earth, no matter what happened. In the final scene of the novel, Captain Ahab is being borne out to sea, wrapped around the white whale with the rope of his own harpoon and going obviously to his death. It was a scene of almost suicidal finality.

Edward Said

More than 25 miles off the coast of Massachusetts and only 14 miles long, Nantucket is, as Herman Melville wrote in 'Moby-Dick,' 'away off shore.'

Nathaniel Philbrick

Be sure of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease.

Herman Melville

Or why you are wearing a picture of Santa Clause on you shirts, but-” “It’s Herman Melville.

Daniel Handler

The idea of Herman Melville in a writing class is always distressing to me.

Harold Bloom

Herman Melville was as separated from a civilized literature as the lost Atlantis was said to have been from the great peoples of the earth.

Edward Dahlberg

Captain Ahab drowned, he reminded himself; it was the trimmer, Ishmael, who survived.

Salman Rushdie

The horror genre is vast and full of brilliance. Stephen King, Shirley Jackson, Herman Melville, the book of Esther. I'll happily join that list.

Victor LaValle

The great American writer Herman Melville says somewhere in The White Whale that a man ought to be 'a patriot to heaven,' and I believe it is a good thing, this ambition to be a cosmopolitan, this idea to be citizens not of a small parcel of the world that changes according to the currents of politics, according to the wars, to what occurs, but to feel that the whole world is our country.

Jorge Luis Borges

The doctors take the bodily evidence as the disease. . . . disease is itself an impudent opinion. He throws off the feelings of the sick and imparts to them his own which are perfect health, and his explanation destroys their feelings or disease. . . . He is like a captain who knows his business and feels confident in a storm, and his confidence sustains the crew and ship when both would be lost if the captain should give way to his fears.

Phineas Quimby

You know who my gods are, who I believe in fervently? Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson - she's probably the top - Mozart, Shakespeare, Keats. These are wonderful gods who have gotten me through the narrow straits of life.

Maurice Sendak

Herman Melville was supposed to be an accountant. Van Gogh was meant to be an art dealer. I was meant to take the train into New York and work for a bank. To be an artist, you have to say goodbye to your family.

Don McLean

Look around you and look at history. You will see the achievements of man’s mind. You will see man’s unlimited potentiality for greatness, and the faculty that makes it possible. You will see that man is not a helpless monster by nature, but he becomes one when he discards that faculty: his mind. And if you ask me, what is greatness? I will answer, it is the capacity to live by the three fundamental values of John Galt: reason, purpose, self-esteem.

Ayn Rand

If you want to know why the coast is such an inspirational place, ask Herman Melville, Jack London, Nordhoff and Hall, Robert Louis Stevenson or Joseph Conrad. It's a glimpse of eternity. It invites rumination, the relentless whisper of the tide against the shore.

John Cooper Clarke

The Bible is very resonant. It has everything: creation, betrayal, lust, poetry, prophecy, sacrifice. All great things are in the Bible, and all great writers have drawn from it and more than people realise, whether Shakespeare, Herman Melville or Bob Dylan.

Patti Smith

In a way, Captain America is the most grounded of the main Marvel superheroes. He is basically just a man, only more so. He doesn't fly across the sky like Iron Man. He isn't from another world like Thor. He doesn't turn into a green monster.

Anthony Russo

A Quote by Nathaniel Philbrick

Quote Topics

Quote Author

Related Quotes

Related Authors