Captain Ahab Quotes in Moby Dick (1956)

Captain Ahab: From hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. Ye damned whale.

Starbuck, first mate: To be enraged with a dumb brute that acted out of blind instinct is blasphemous.

Captain Ahab: Speak not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me. Look ye, Starbuck, all visible objects are but as pasteboard masks. Some inscrutable yet reasoning thing puts forth the molding of their features. The white whale tasks me; he heaps me. Yet he is but a mask. 'Tis the thing behind the mask I chiefly hate; the malignant thing that has plagued mankind since time began; the thing that maws and mutilates our race, not killing us outright but letting us live on, with half a heart and half a lung.

Starbuck, first mate: It's late; you should turn in.

Captain Ahab: Sleep? That bed is a coffin, and those are winding sheets. I do not sleep, I die.

Captain Ahab: I'll follow him around the Horn, and around the Norway maelstrom, and around perdition's flames before I give him up.

Captain Ahab: I don't give reasons. I give orders!

Captain Ahab: By heavens man, we are turned round and round in this world, like yonder windlass, and fate is the handspike.

Captain Ahab: Captain Gardner, I seek the white whale, your own son's murderer. I am losing time... Goodbye, and fare thee well, I say. God help you, Captain Gardiner.

Captain Gardiner: God forgive you, Captain Ahab.

Captain Ahab: Blacksmith, I set ye a task. Take these harpoons and lances. Melt them down. Forge me new weapons that will strike deep and hold fast. But do not douse them in water; they must have a proper baptism. What say ye, all ye men? Will you give as much blood as shall be needed to temper the steel?

Captain Ahab: Birds... the birds... *He rises*!