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Wolf - tis what he is. He's not blackhearted like some men. 'Tis no heart he has at all. Wolf. just Wolf, tis what he is. D'ye wonder he's well named?
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The scab is a traitor to his God, his mother, and his class.
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Men do not knowingly drink for the effect alcohol produces on the body. What they drink for is the brain-effect; and if it must come through the body, so much the worse for the body.
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'Then one can't make a living out of poetry?''Certainly not. What fool expects to? Out of rhyming, yes.'
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If cash comes with fame, come fame; if cash comes without fame, come cash.
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Hist, now, between you an' meself and the stanchion there, this Wolf Larsen is a regular devil, an' the Ghost'll be a hell ship like she's always been since he had hold iv her.
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There are things greater than our wisdom, beyond our justice. The right and wrong of this we cannot say, and it is not for us to judge.
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These women, capable of the most sublime emotions, of the tenderest sympathies, were openmouthed and screaming. They wanted to live, they were helpless, likes rats in a trap, and they screamed.
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The loneliness of the man is slowly being borne in upon me. There is not a man aboard but hates or fears him, nor is there a man whom he does not despise.
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Judge them by their works. What have they done for mankind beyond the spinning of airy fancies and the mistaking of their own shadows for gods?
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'The cap'n is Wolf Larsen, or so men call him. I never heard his other name. But you better speak soft with him. He is mad this morning. The mate-' But he did not finish. The cook had glided in.
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I was five years old the first time I got drunk.
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I love the flesh. I'm a pagan. 'Who are they who speak evil of the clay? The very stars are made of clay like mine!'
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'I only remember one part of the service,' he said, 'and that is 'And the body shall be cast into the sea'. So cast it in.'
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He was not immoral, but merely unmoral.
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He was a killer, a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided, alone, by virtue of his own strength and prowess, surviving triumphantly in a hostile environment where only the strong survive.
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Against the wall, near the head of the bunk, was a rack filled with books. I glanced over them, noting with astonishment such names as Shakespeare, Tennyson, Poe, and De Quincey. There were scientific works too, among which were represented men such as Tyndall, Proctor, and Darwin.
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He lacked the wisdom, and the only way for him to get it was to buy it with his youth; and when wisdom was his, youth would have been spent buying it.
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Life? Bah! It has no value. Of cheap things it is the cheapest.
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The fortunate man is the one who cannot take more than a couple of drinks without becoming intoxicated. The unfortunate wight is the one who can take many glasses without betraying a sign; who must take numerous glasses in order to get the kick.
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He does not lose anything, for with the loss of himself he loses the knowledge of loss.
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Too much is written by the men who can't write about the men who do write.
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I am. I was. I am not. I never am.
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Concerning his own rages, I am convinced that they are not real, that they are sometimes experiments, but that in the main they are the habits of a pose or attitude he has seen fit to take toward his fellowman.