Best 19 quotes in «whale quotes» category

Is it not curious, that so vast a being as the whale should see the world through so small an eye, and hear the thunder through an ear which is smaller than a hare's? But if his eyes were broad as the lens of Herschel's great telescope; and his ears capacious as the porches of cathedrals; would that make him any longer of sight, or sharper of hearing? Not at all.-Why then do you try to 'enlarge' your mind? Subtilize it.

Imagine a forty-five-year-old male fifty feet long, a slim, shiny black animal cutting the surface of green ocean water at twenty knots. At fifty tons it is the largest carnivore on earth. Imagine a four-hundred-pound heart the size of a chest of drawers driving five gallons of blood at a stroke through its aorta; a meal of forty salmon moving slowly down twelve-hundred feet of intestine…the sperm whale’s brain is larger than the brain of any other creature that ever lived…With skin as sensitive as the inside of your wrist.

I was sixteen, still my mother’s prisoner, the night I became the whale.

Jambo ambalo Mungu anataka tulitambue ni kwamba hatuko wenyewe katika bahari hii ya hewa. Hata nyangumi na wazira waovu wanapozunguka huko na huko baharini, ambao pia ni mapepo, wanaochukuliwa kama viumbe wabaya na wachafu na wala mizoga, wanaishi katika bahari hii ya hewa pamoja na sisi. Ni muhimu, kwa ajili ya ustawi wetu wa kiroho, kusikia onyo la Paulo katika Waefeso 6:10-12 kwamba vita yetu si dhidi ya hawa viumbe, na wanapambana usiku na mchana kutetea kile ambacho wanaamini ni cha kwao kwa sababu ya haki ya kuwepo hapa kwanza kabla yetu. Dunia, Biblia inatwambia, ilikuwa makazi yao ya kwanza (Yuda 1:6, KJV). Wanatuchukia kwa sababu taratibu tunakuwa Baba na Mwana, na kwa sababu wanajua hii dunia, urithi wetu, itachukuliwa kutoka mikononi mwao na kukabidhiwa kwa wale ambao ni watoto wa Mungu, wale ambao ni marafiki wa msalaba wa Yesu Kristo.

If you swim with sharks, make sure you have the appetite of a whale.

In life, the visible surface of the Sperm Whale is not the least among the many marvels he presents. Almost invariably it is all over obliquely crossed and re-crossed with numberless straight marks in thick array, something like those in the finest Italian line engravings. But these marks do not seem to be impressed upon the isinglass substance above mentioned, but seem to be seen through it, as if they were engraved upon the body itself. Nor is this all. In some instances, to the quick, observant eye, those linear marks, as in a veritable engraving, but afford the ground for far other delineations. These are hieroglyphical; that is, if you call those mysterious cyphers on the walls of pyramids hieroglyphics, then that is the proper word to use in the present connexion. By my retentive memory of the hieroglyphics upon one Sperm Whale in particular, I was much struck with a plate representing the old Indian characters chiselled on the famous hieroglyphic palisades on the banks of the Upper Mississippi. Like those mystic rocks, too, the mystic-marked whale remains undecipherable.

It was a figure of a whale, with a white triangle that was supposed to be its spray. The spray moved up and down above the blowhole. On top of the spray sat a black-haired woman.

Nothing is off-limits to me, tiny human. You think the desire in your heart is buried, but I couldn't ignore it if I tried! It means this: you want me to peace out? Shut it all down? Fine! I'll go! But you'll never get your next wish. Your secret wish. [. .] A mother's love. A father you know. A world at peace. A sky of stars. This could be yours . . . or you could lose it forever. And I can go. Doesn't matter to me, you finite speck.

The whirligig featured a drummer, a trumpet player, a clarinetist, and a man with a trombone. It was a leap beyond the spouting whale, with more figures, a six-bladed propeller, and a much more complex system of rods and pivots that made the instruments dip and rise as if the musicians were marching.

Tears filled her eyes, and this time neither of them bothered to wipe them away. She stared at the spot long after the lost animal disappeared, silently telling her dad she’d seen one too.

The heroic and often tragic stories of American whalemen were renowned. They sailed the world’s oceans and brought back tales filled with bravery, perseverance, endurance, and survival. They mutinied, murdered, rioted, deserted, drank, sang, spun yarns, scrimshawed, and recorded their musings and observations in journals and letters. They survived boredom, backbreaking work, tempestuous seas, floggings, pirates, putrid food, and unimaginable cold. Enemies preyed on them in times of war, and competitors envied them in times of peace. Many whalemen died from violent encounters with whales and from terrible miscalculations about the unforgiving nature of nature itself. And through it all, whalemen, those “iron men in wooden boats” created a legacy of dramatic, poignant, and at times horrific stories that can still stir our emotions and animate the most primal part of our imaginations. “To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme,” proclaimed Herman Melville, and the epic story of whaling is one of the mightiest themes in American history.

What is the difference between a cathedral and a physics lab? Are not they both saying: Hello? We spy on whales and on interstellar radio objects; we starve ourselves and pray till we're blue.

What up you guys, I'm back!

I denne Skiærsmissel det artig tilgik, Hver toge til takke den skade de fik, Og ingen lod anden anmode; Thi den Harpunerer behote sit Spiud, Og Hvalen beholte sit Spæk og sin Hud, De skiltes ad Venner og gode.

For every inch of skin, there is memory. Devils are so made. Saints, too, if you believe in them. His humanity has been broken as an old walking stick that once held up a crippled man named Thomas. He realizes the stick and the man are one thing and he can fall. He has violated the laws beneath the laws of men and countries, something deeper, the earth and the sea, the explosions of trees. He has to care again. He has to be water again, rock, earth with its new spring wildflowers and its beautiful, complex mosses.

A dog rules a farm. A fox rules a bush. A wolf rules a forest. A lion rules a jungle. A fish rules a pond. A crocodile rules a river. A shark rules a sea. A whale rules an ocean.

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me. There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs--commerce surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there. Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you see?--Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster--tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What do they here? But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand--miles of them--leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets and avenues--north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all those ships attract them thither? Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high land of lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region. Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.

Da Høitiden og den berammede Fæst Fremskinnet, at alle blev buden som Giæst, Var Brudgommen længst uti Havet. Hvad var her at giøre, mand skicket ham bud, Mand satte Fartøyer og Slupper herud, Og allesteds Havet omstrømmet; Hand lod sig dog icke beqvemme dertil, Han bad dem inbiude, hvem Fanden de vil, Den Giæstebud hannem ey sømmet.

Du grumme Søe-Konge, du Trold i det Vand, Hvad driver dig til, at du render paa Land, Og lader godvillig dig slagte.