Jules Verne Quotes

The human mind delights in grand conceptions of supernatural beings.

The sea is everything. It covers seven tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides. The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence. It is nothing but love and emotion; it is the `Living Infinite,′ as one of your poets has said.

We may brave human laws, but we cannot resist natural ones.

“Sir,” replied the commander, “I am nothing to you but Captain Nemo; and you and your companions are nothing to me but the passengers of the Nautilus.”

“There remained one resource, to speak English. Perhaps they would know this almost universal language. I knew it—as well as the German language—well enough to read it fluently, but not to speak it correctly. But, anyhow, we must make ourselves understood.”

“I discovered it, ventured into it, and before long, sir, you too will have passed through my Arabian tunnel!”

“From a caprice of nature, not from the ignorance of man. Not a mistake has been made in the working. But we cannot prevent equilibrium from producing its effects. We may brave human laws, but we cannot resist natural ones.”

We will die together, friend Ned.

“I am not what you call a civilised man! I have done with society entirely, for reasons which I alone have the right of appreciating. I do not, therefore, obey its laws, and I desire you never to allude to them before me again!”

Nature’s creative power is far beyond man’s instinct of destruction.

“God, if he believed in one—his conscience, if he had one—were the sole judges to whom he was answerable.”

Wait a few minutes, our lantern will be lit, and, if you like light places, you will be satisfied.

“As to classing it in the list of fables, the idea was out of the question.”

“His countenance had resumed its habitual imperturbability.”

The earth does not want new continents, but new men.

It was marvellous, a feast for the eyes, this complication of coloured tints, a perfect kaleidoscope of green, yellow, orange, violet, indigo, and blue; in one word, the whole palette of an enthusiastic colourist!

If his destiny be strange, it is also sublime.

Where others have failed, I will not fail.

“There is the disadvantage of not knowing all languages,” said Conseil, “or the disadvantage of not having one universal language.”

[S]team seems to have killed all gratitude in the hearts of sailors.

I thanked Captain Nemo, and went up to the shelves of the library. Works on science, morals, and literature abounded in every language; but I did not see one single work on political economy; that subject appeared to be strictly proscribed. Strange to say, all these books were irregularly arranged, in whatever language they were written; and this medley proved that the Captain of the Nautilus must have read indiscriminately the books which he took up by chance.

However, everything has an end, everything passes away, even the hunger of people who have not eaten for fifteen hours. Our appetites satisfied, we felt overcome with sleep.

[I]t is evidently a gigantic narwhal, and an electric one.

“Perfume is the soul of the flower, and sea-flowers have no soul.”

May the judge disappear, and the philosopher continue the peaceful exploration of the sea!

As for seeing the town, the idea never occurred to him, for he was the sort of Englishman who, on his travels, gets his servant to do his sightseeing for him.

It may be said here that the wise policy of the British Government severely punishes a disregard of the practices of the native religions.

Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real.

The chance which now seems lost may present itself at the last moment.

It’s really useful to travel, if you want to see new things.

His countenance possessed in the highest degree what physiognomists call “repose in action,” a quality of those who act rather than talk.

If the thing is feasible, the first to do it ought to be an Englishman.

The game was in his eyes a contest, a struggle with a difficulty, yet a motionless, unwearying struggle, congenial to his tastes.

He lived alone, and, so to speak, outside of every social relation; and as he knew that in this world account must be taken of friction, and that friction retards, he never rubbed against anybody.

I see that it is by no means useless to travel, if a man wants to see something new.

A true Englishman doesn’t joke when he is talking about so serious a thing as a wager.

It may be taken for granted that, rash as the Americans are, when they are prudent there is good reason for it.

A well-used minimum suffices for everything.

Why, I’ve just this instant found out that we might have gone around the world in only seventy-eight days.

We are going round the world.

Passepartout was astounded, and, though ready to attempt anything to get over Medicine Creek, thought the experiment proposed a little too American.

An English criminal, you know, is always better concealed in London than anywhere else.

Phileas Fogg, having shut the door of his house at half-past eleven, and having put his right foot before his left five hundred and seventy-five times, and his left foot before his right five hundred and seventy-six times, reached the Reform Club.

I see that it is by no means useless to travel, if a man wants to see something new.

As for Phileas Fogg, it seemed just as if the typhoon were a part of his programme.

If to live in this style is to be eccentric, it must be confessed that there is something good in eccentricity.

The noble lord, confined to his armchair, would have given his whole fortune to be able to travel around the world, in ten years even; and he bet four thousand pounds on Phileas Fogg.

Was he being devoured by one of those secret rages, all the more terrible because contained, and which only burst forth, with irresistible force, at the last moment?

Solitude is a sad thing, with no heart to which to confide your griefs.

Nothing, say you? Perhaps so; nothing but a charming woman, who, strange as it may appear, made him the happiest of men!

“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.”