Journey to the Center of the Earth Quotes

“Our principle is, that books, instead of growing mouldy behind an iron grating, should be worn out under the eyes of many readers.”

“Science, my lad, has been built upon many errors; but they are errors which it was good to fall into, for they led to the truth.”

“But silence, do you hear me? Silence upon the whole subject; and let no one get before us in this design of discovering the center of the earth.”

“Where did truth stop? Where did error begin? I was all adrift among a thousand contradictory hypotheses, but I could not lay hold of one.”

“Ah, women and young girls, how incomprehensible are your feminine hearts! When you are not the timidest, you are the bravest of creatures.”

“Then my uncle became a great man, and myself the nephew of a great man, which is at least something.”

″... since there was no indication whatever to guide our choice, we were obliged to trust to chance.”

“Well! Heaven had destined my uncle to become completely happy.”

“This return of trust in God’s providence allayed the turbulence of my fears, and I was enabled to concentrate upon my situation all the force of my intelligence.”

“A man shut up between four walls soon loses the power to associate words and ideas together. How many prisoners in solitary confinement become idiots, if not mad, for want of exercise of the thinking faculty.”

″... I no longer had any feeling other than the dark terror of the condemned tied to the mouth of a cannon, at the moment when the shot is fired and scatters their limbs into the air.”

“Yes, I do; as long as the heart beats, as long as body and soul keep together, I cannot admit that any creature endowed with a will has need to despair of life.”

“As for me, my thoughts were made up of remembrances, and they carried me up to the surface of the globe which I ought never to have taken leave.”

“The farther I go the more confidence I feel. The order of these volcanic formations affords the strongest confirmation to the theories of Davy.”

“We were standing at the intersection of two roads, both dark and narrow. Which were we to take? This was a difficulty. Still my uncle refused to admit an appearance of hesitation, either before me or the guide...”

“It’s not what is upon this island, but what is underneath that interests me.”

″... I can hardly believe my eyes. Who would have ever imagined, under this terrestrial crust, an ocean with ebbing and flowing tides, with winds and storms?”

“This is the end of a story that even people who are not usually amazed at anything may refuse to believe. But I am armed in advance against human incredulity.”

“A sudden light burst in on me; these hints alone gave me the first glimpse of truth; I had discovered the key to the cipher.”

“But one concern, one might even say a torment, remained in the middle of this glory. One fact remained inexplicable, the one involving the compass; now for a scholar, such an unexplained phenomenon becomes torture for the intelligence.”