All my means are sane, my motive and my object mad.
 Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851). copy citation

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Author Herman Melville
Source Moby-Dick
Topic madness sanity means goal
Date 1851
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2701/2701-h/2701-h.htm

Context

“Wind ye down there, ye prouder, sadder souls! question that proud, sad king! A family likeness! aye, he did beget ye, ye young exiled royalties; and from your grim sire only will the old State-secret come.
Now, in his heart, Ahab had some glimpse of this, namely: all my means are sane, my motive and my object mad. Yet without power to kill, or change, or shun the fact; he likewise knew that to mankind he did long dissemble; in some sort, did still. But that thing of his dissembling was only subject to his perceptibility, not to his will determinate.” source

Meaning and analysis

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