How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
I lay across one of the thwarts for I know not how long, thinking that if I had the strength I would drink sea-water and madden myself to die quickly. (1.6)
The natural world can be harsh, even for the granola-y backpackers of the world. We may have found a way to travel and live across the globe, but there's still a scary amount of it that is straight-up deadly to us. Case in point? Sea water, which covers most of the planet, is not much of a thirst quencher.
Quote #2
"This ship ain't for beasts and cannibals, and worse than beasts, any more." (5.18)
Of course, the irony that Captain Davis is acting worse than a beast when he says this is completely and utterly lost on him. Drinking and irony don't mix.
Quote #3
At any rate they were an amazingly ugly gang, and over the heads of them, under the forward lug, peered the black face of the man whose eyes were luminous in the dark. (6.5)
At first, the only distinction Prendick notices between the Beast Folk and ordinary humans is the physical distinction. Check out the "What's Up With the Ending?" section to see how that changes.
Quote #4
Every shadow became something more than a shadow,—became an ambush; every rustle became a threat. Invisible things seemed watching me. (9.7)
The natural world terrifies our imaginations. We may consider ourselves the dominant species on the planet, but usually only when we're nice and sheltered in our dens in front of TVs screening Planet Earth in HD. Without our guns—and today without our ipods and AC—the natural world can inflict a pretty good beating on our perception of superiority.
Quote #5
A twig snapped behind me and there was a rustle. I turned and stood facing the dark trees. I could see nothing—or else I could see too much. Every dark form in the dimness had its ominous quality, its peculiar suggestion of alert watchfulness. (9.23)
Prendick sees the true relationship between man and nature. We think we have conquered nature, but in truth, it will always kick our butts if we have to face it alone. Not to mention that it's miles ahead in terms of creepiness…
Quote #6
I perceived that I was hungry, and prepared to clamber out of the hammock which, very politely anticipating my intention, twisted round and deposited me upon all-fours on the floor. (10.16)
The need for food and water links us forever to the natural world. Wells has a little fun here by having Prendick's hunger cause him to end up on all-fours like an animal. Good thing no one caught him. It's technically against the Law.
Quote #7
They may once have been animals; but I never before saw an animal trying to think. (13.44)
But you have Prendick, and we don't mean a gorilla using sign language. People are animals too, and people think.
Quote #8
"[…] so long as your own pains drive you, so long as pain underlines your propositions about sin,—so long, I tell you, you are an animal, thinking a little less obscurely what an animal feels." (14.21)
Moreau believes pain links humans to the natural world and, in fact, will do so until pain is no longer affects how we act. Of course, there's a lot to be said for pain, such as the way it keeps us alive and whatnot.
Quote #9
A strange persuasion came upon me, that, save for the grossness of the line, the grotesqueness of the forms, I had here before me the whole balance of human life in miniature, the whole interplay of instinct, reason, and fate, in its simplest form. (16.89)
Wells was a scientist, so one might think he'd think of reason as something special and distinctly human. Nope. Reason joins instinct and fate as traits that are part of the natural order on Moreau's island.
Quote #10
Then I would turn aside into some chapel,—and even there, such was my disturbance, it seemed that the preacher gibbered "Big Thinks," even as the Ape Man had done; […]" (22.6)
Ape Man learned Big Thinks by copying human behavior. Prendick sees the preacher in the same light, pretending to be human. It's monkey see monkey do, only literally.