So, cutting the lashing of the waterproof match keg, after many failures Starbuck contrived to ignite the lamp in the lantern; then stretching it on a waif pole, handed it to Queequeg as the standard-bearer of this forlorn hope. There, then, he sat, holding up that imbecile candle in the heart of that almighty forlornness. There, then, he sat, the sign and symbol of a man without faith, hopelessly holding up hope in the midst of despair. Herman Melville
Some Similar Quotes
  1. When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always. - Mahatma Gandhi

  2. She wanted to lose herself in him. To tie his arms around her like a tourniquet. If she showed him how much she needed him, he'd run away. - Rainbow Rowell

  3. Life ... is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. - William Shakespeare

  4. Despair is the price one pays for self-awareness. Look deeply into life, and you'll always find despair. - Irvin D. Yalom

  5. Fame you'll be famous, as famous as can be, with everyone watching you win on TV, Except when they don't because sometimes they won't.. - Dr. Seuss

More Quotes By Herman Melville
  1. Cannibals? Who is not a cannibal? I tell you it will be more tolerable for the Fejee that salted down a lean missionary in his cellar against a coming famine; it will be more tolerable for that provident Fejee, I say, in the day of...

  2. So, when on one side you hoist in Locke's head, you go over that way; but now, on the other side, hoist in Kant's and you come back again; but in very poor plight. Thus, some minds for ever keep trimming boat. Oh, ye foolish!...

  3. 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...

  4. Queequeg was a native of Kokovoko, an island far away to the West and South. It is not down in any map; true places never are.

  5. But vain to popularize profundities, and all truth is profound.

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