Ahab Quotes

• Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm? But if the great sun move not of himself; but is an errand-boy in heaven; nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible power; how then can this one small heart beat; this one small brain think thoughts; unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does that living, and not I.

  Herman Melville

  Stars, Moving, Heart

  Herman Melville (2016). “Moby Dick (World Classics, Unabridged)”, p.370, Vij Books India Pvt Ltd

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• I see 'Ahab's Wife' as offering an alternative vision to

  Moby

  Offering, Wife, Vision

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

  Salman Rushdie

  Captains, Ishmael, Survived

  Salman Rushdie (1989). “The Satanic Verses”, New York, N.Y. : Viking

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• The people we call the prophets I think are the earliest dissident intellectuals, and they're treated like most dissident intellectuals - very badly. They're imprisoned, driven into the desert. King Ahab, the epitome of evil in the Bible, condemned Elijah as a "hater of Israel." This is the first self-hating Jew, the origin of the term. It goes right up to the present. That's the history of intellectuals.

  Noam Chomsky

  Kings, Hate, Thinking

  Source: www.commonwealmagazine.org

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• 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

  Suicidal, Men, Whales

  Source: www.progressive.org

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

  Nathaniel Philbrick

  Greatness, Men, Monsters

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• Prophet just means intellectual. They were people giving geopolitical analysis, moral lessons, that sort of thing. We call them intellectuals today. There were the people we honor as prophets, there were the people we condemn as false prophets. But if you look at the biblical record, at the time, it was the other way around. The flatterers of the Court of King Ahab were the ones who were honored. The ones we call prophets were driven into the desert and imprisoned.

  Noam Chomsky

  Kings, Mean, Biblical

  "The U.S. Role in the World". Interview with Harry Kreisler, globetrotter.berkeley.edu. March 22, 2002.

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• His [Elijah] heart was beginning to give signs of alarm; he was enjoying being at this woman's side. Love could be a more frightening experience than standing before Ahab's soldier with an arrow aimed at his heart; if the arrow had struck him, he would be dead -and the rest was up to God. But if love struck him, he alone would have to take responsibility for the consequences.

  Paulo Coelho

  Life, Inspiration, Responsibility

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• Ahab cast a covetous eye at Naboth's vineyard, David a lustful eye at Bathsheba. The eye is the pulse of the soul; as physicians judge of the heart by the pulse, so we by the eye; a rolling eye, a roving heart. The good eye keeps minute time, and strikes when it should; the lustful, crochet-time, and so puts all out of tune.

  Thomas Adams

  Heart, Eye, Judging

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• Sleep and I do not have a good relationship. We have never been good friends. I am constantly chasing sleep and then pushing it away. A good night's sleep is my white whale. Like Ahab, I am also a total drama queen about it. I love to talk about how little sleep I get. I brag about it, as if it is a true indication of how hard I work.

  Amy Poehler

  Good Night, Queens, Drama

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• Those whom God calls to such a ministry - and a call is essential - must be prepared for a pathway of unpopularity and misunderstanding. "You troubler of Israel" was the way Ahab addressed Elijah.

  Arthur Wallis

  Israel, Pathways, Essentials

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• Satan turned Eve's eye to the apple, Achan's eye to the wedge of gold, Ahab's eye to Naboth's vineyard, and then what work did he make with them!

  Joseph Alleine

  Eye, Apples, Gold

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