IDLE in Classic Quotes

Simple words can express big ideas - learn how great writers to make beautiful sentences with common words.
Quotes from Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Stories of USA Today
Materials for Reading & Listening Practice
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 Current Search - idle in Moby Dick
1  Indolence and idleness perished before him.
Moby Dick By Herman Melville
ContextHighlight   In CHAPTER 16. The Ship.
2  Nor were the oarsmen quite idle, though their wonted duty was now altogether dispensed with.
Moby Dick By Herman Melville
ContextHighlight   In CHAPTER 87. The Grand Armada.
3  Rains and spray had damped it; sun and wind had warped it; all the elements had combined to rot a thing that hung so idly.
Moby Dick By Herman Melville
ContextHighlight   In CHAPTER 125. The Log and Line.
4  To insure the greatest efficiency in the dart, the harpooneers of this world must start to their feet from out of idleness, and not from out of toil.
Moby Dick By Herman Melville
ContextHighlight   In CHAPTER 62. The Dart.
5  It was my turn to stand at the foremast-head; and with my shoulders leaning against the slackened royal shrouds, to and fro I idly swayed in what seemed an enchanted air.
Moby Dick By Herman Melville
ContextHighlight   In CHAPTER 61. Stubb Kills a Whale.
6  Moreover, the ship's forge was ordered to be hoisted out of its temporary idleness in the hold; and, to accelerate the affair, the blacksmith was commanded to proceed at once to the forging of whatever iron contrivances might be needed.
Moby Dick By Herman Melville
ContextHighlight   In CHAPTER 106. Ahab's Leg.
7  It may be but an idle whim, but it has always seemed to me, that the extraordinary vacillations of movement displayed by some whales when beset by three or four boats; the timidity and liability to queer frights, so common to such whales; I think that all this indirectly proceeds from the helpless perplexity of volition, in which their divided and diametrically opposite powers of vision must involve them.
Moby Dick By Herman Melville
ContextHighlight   In CHAPTER 74. The Sperm Whale's Head—Contrasted View.