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“As, blind and deaf, the whale plunged forward, as if by sheer power of speed to rid himself of the iron leech that had fastened to him; as we thus tore a white gash in the sea, on all sides menaced as we flew, by the crazed creatures to and fro rushing about us; our beset boat was like a ship mobbed by ice-isles in a tempest, […] knowing not at what moment it may be locked in and crushed.”

Every time they actually kill a whale I want to cry and throw up. LEAVE THEM ALONE, THESE WHALES ARE READING SPINOZA

“Human or animal, the mystical brow is as that great golden seal affixed by the German emperors to their decrees. It signifies - 'God: done this day by my hand.'”

Funny as hell. Every four pages of chapter 1 there’s the literary equivalent of a needle drop.

(Paraphrase) “A young theorist was tearing his way through the scene. Named Vladimir Ulyanov. Maybe you know his pseudonym 😏”

And I point and clap everytime on queue.

“In bony, ribby regions of the earth, where at the base of high broken cliffs masses of rock lie strewn in fantastic groupings upon the plain, you will often discover images of the petrified forms of the Leviathan partly merged in grass, which of a windy day breaks against them in a surf of green surges.”

“God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that vulture the very creature
he creates.”

‘I had not liked Mr. Partridge, and I told Father that.

"No," he said, "nor did I. I suspect he beats the woman and secretly mistreats the old lady. The man bears watching, though. Somewhere along the line,” he said, "I fear we'll have to cut him down."’

‘The image of Father reading beside me has faded. The light that accompanied my memory of him is gone, and although I cannot see him, I can still hear his voice. He says to me, "It's very dark here. You don't mind the darkness, Owen? And the cold? It's grown very cold since the sun set. Why not go inside and light a fire?"
"I do mind the darkness. It's making me feel too much the pain of being alone.”’

“Already several fatalities had attended his chase. But though similar disasters, however little bruited ashore, were by no means unusual in the fishery; yet, in most instances, such seemed the White Whale's infernal aforethought of ferocity, that every dismembering or death that he caused, was not wholly regarded as having been inflicted by an unintelligent agent.”

“BOOK I (Folio), CHAPTER VI. (Sulphur Bottom). - Another retiring gentleman, with a brimstone belly, doubtless got by scraping along the Tartarian tiles in some of his profounder divings. He is seldom seen [...] He is never chased; he would run away with rope-walks of line. Prodigies are told of him. Adieu, Sulphur Bottom! I can say nothing more that is true of ye, nor can the oldest Nan-tucketer.”

Getting some bad vibes from this Ahab guy.

Oof...

“Ship and boat diverged; the cold, damp night breeze blew between; a screaming gull flew overhead; the two hulls wildly rolled; we gave three heavy-hearted cheers, and blindly plunged like fate into the lone Atlantic.”

I remember it being gay but Jesus Christ

“The instrument suffers the same fate as the man. Every day brings a man [24] hours nearer to his grave, although no one can tell accurately, merely by looking at a man, how many days he has still to travel on that road. This difficulty, however, does not prevent life insurance companies from using the theory of averages to draw very accurate […], very profitable conclusions about the length of a man's life.”

“By turning his money into commodities which serve as the building materials for a new product, and as factors in the labour process, […] the capitalist simultaneously transforms value, i.e. past labour in its objectified and lifeless form, into capital, value which can perform its own valorization process, an animated monster which begins to 'work' as if its ‘body were by love possessed'.”