Come and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents’ beds, unerringly I rush! Naught’s an obstacle, naught’s an angle to the iron way!

~ Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or The Whale (Modern Library, 1992, originally published by Harper & Brothers, 1851)

Photo: sebastião-salgado, Southern Right Whale, Patagonia, Argentina (via see more)