How we cite our quotes: (Chapter, Paragraph)
Quote #1
"You fools!" cried he with the wooden leg, writhing himself loose and inflamedly turning upon the throng; "you flock of fools, under this captain of fools, in this ship of fools!" (3, 50)
Don't have to knock us over the head with it, man. The dude with the wooden leg is not happy that people are not on his side against Guinea. More than just an extended insult though, these lines are a nod to Sebastian Brant's Ship of Fools, an idea Plato came up with that gets picked up later by thinkers like Michel Foucault. Main message: the world itself is sort of a ship of fools—and ships of fools are usually headed toward a bad end.
Quote #2
To some observers, the singularity, if not lunacy, of the stranger was heightened by his muteness, and, perhaps also, by the contrast to his proceedings afforded in the actions—quite in the wonted and sensible order of things—of the barber of the boat, whose quarters, under a smoking-saloon, and over against a bar-room, was next door but two to the captain's office. (1, 16)
To the crowd, the mute is not simply foolhardy, he's bonkers. These folks are also not super tolerant of the fact that the dude doesn't speak—regardless of the fact that he's deaf. This moment, when the narrator relates the crowd's ideas about the mute's foolishness, is also as an opportunity to assess the crowd's own folly. They align themselves with the hustle and bustle of the barber, with little sympathy for anyone in the mute's position.
Quote #3
After eying the rude speaker a moment with an expression of mingled admiration and consternation, the company silently exchanged glances of mutual sympathy under unwelcome conviction. Those who had purchased looked sheepish or ashamed; and a cynical-looking little man, with a thin flaggy beard, and a countenance ever wearing the rudiments of a grin, seated alone in a corner commanding a good view of the scene, held a rusty hat before his face. (17, 35)
After an angry dad puts the herb-doctor in his place for selling potions and lotions unlikely to actually cure anything, the rest of the crowd sort of gets that shuffling, uneasy feeling when you know you've messed up. Some regret being so silly as to buy the fake medicine. Others who were skeptical throughout the herb-doctor's presentation get a good laugh out of this moment.
Quote #4
"Nay, back, back—receipt, my receipt! Ugh, ugh, ugh! Who are you? What have I done? Where go you? My gold, my gold! Ugh, ugh, ugh!"
But, unluckily for this final flicker of reason, the stranger was now beyond ear-shot, nor was any one else within hearing of so feeble a call. (15, 51-52)
Too late, the miser realizes he has slipped up. In his greedy hopes of tripling his money, he lost sight of the fact that he didn't complete any paperwork. This "aha" moment is immediate. Not everyone in the novel comes to such knowledge so quickly.
Quote #5
He revolves the crafty process of sociable chat, by which, as he fancies, the man with the brass-plate wormed into him, and made such a fool of him as insensibly to persuade him to waive, in his exceptional case, that general law of distrust systematically applied to the race. He revolves, but cannot comprehend, the operation, still less the operator. Was the man a trickster, it must be more for the love than the lucre. Two or three dirty dollars the motive to so many nice wiles? And yet how full of mean needs his seeming. (23, 4)
Pitch is mulling things over. He realizes the PIO representative is probably just going to run away with his cash. What he doesn't fully grasp is how this happened—he's a resolute cynic, after all. Yeah, well, sometimes folly comes about through nothing more than social chitchat. You're expecting to fight off a con artist, and you fail to see that your friendly companion is conning you. Worse, the con itself is obscured by the very fact that the con-man is a wolf in buddy's clothing.
Quote #6
"I ask? I ask a loan? Frank, by this hand, under no circumstances would I accept a loan, though without asking pressed on me. The experience of China Aster might warn me."
"And what was that?"
"Not very unlike the experience of the man that built himself a palace of moon-beams, and when the moon set was surprised that his palace vanished with it. I will tell you about China Aster. (39, 58-60)
Before Egbert tells the story of China Aster, he prefaces it with his criticism of the foolishness of borrowing funds from a friend. This criticism takes the form of a pretty but disparaging simile of a dreamer whose house is built on moonbeams. Clearly not a solid foundation for your palace, right? The deeper meaning is that if you're going the house-of-sand-and-fog route, you can't be bummed when your world comes crashing down.
Quote #7
"I don't admit it. Or, if I did, I take it back. Shouldn't wonder if, after all, he is no knave at all, or, but little of one. What can you prove against him?"
"I can prove that he makes dupes." (18, 6-7)
Hmm…we know you can be duped, but can you make people into dupes? That is the question. These two nameless conversationalists have witnessed the herb-doctor's takedown by the angry dad, and now they're debating whether he's a scoundrel or not. Guy #2 seems to think he is, because he makes people believe his lies. This raises important questions about the blame-game. For Guy #2, you can't blame the victim of a con for being a tool—that's on the con-man for being a crook.
Quote #8
"He is not wholly at heart a knave, I fancy, among whose dupes is himself. Did you not see our quack friend apply to himself his own quackery? A fanatic quack; essentially a fool, though effectively a knave." (18, 10)
Ooooo, this just got interesting. This guy thinks the herb-doctor is a quack who dupes himself as he tricks others. It's unclear if drinking his own Kool-Aid gives the herb-doctor a pass, since he's still functionally a crooked doc, but the point is that if you play with fire, you're gonna get burned yourself in some way.
Quote #9
"I can't conceive how you, in anyway, can hold him a fool. How he talked—so glib, so pat, so well." (18, 12)
More philosophical musings: if you're a fast-talking dame, does that exclude you from being a silly billy? What is it about being a good speaker that makes it hard to accept that the guy at the podium may be a doof? This guy can't believe someone would think of the herb-doctor as a fool—he's said all the right things, after all.
Quote #10
"A smart fool always talks well; takes a smart fool to be tonguey."
In much the same strain the discussion continued—the hook-nosed gentleman talking at large and excellently, with a view of demonstrating that a smart fool always talks just so. Ere long he talked to such purpose as almost to convince. (18, 13-14)
New character-type alert: the smart fool. What's that? Hmm, well it looks like a smart fool is a special breed of person who takes his brains and uses them to be a good talker. Doesn't mean that person's not going to make all the wrong choices; just means he is going to convince a lot of people to go down with him as he crashes and burns. Meanwhile, the rest of this discussion gets a mild meta-nod from the narrator: the guy advocating that a smart fool is a good talker almost talks dude number two into believing him. We see what you did there, Melville.