Jules Verne quotes

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.

— Spoken by a character · X. THE MAN OF THE SEAS

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

— Spoken by a character · XVIII. VANIKORO

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.

— Spoken by a character · X. THE MAN OF THE SEAS

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

— Spoken by a character · XV. ACCIDENT OR INCIDENT?

Captain Nemo pointed with his hand to the enormous heap of oysters; and I could well understand that this mine was inexhaustible, for Nature’s creative power is far beyond man’s instinct of destruction.

If his destiny be strange, it is also sublime.

The human mind delights in grand conceptions of supernatural beings.

“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!”

— Spoken by a character · X. THE MAN OF THE SEAS

I agree with you,” said I; “and steam seems to have killed all gratitude in the hearts of sailors.

— Spoken by a character · IV. THE RED SEA

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

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

— Spoken by a character · XIII. IN WHICH PASSEPARTOUT RECEIVES A NEW PROOF THAT FORTUNE FAVORS THE BRAVE

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

Truly, would you not for less than that make the tour around the world?

“Why, you are a man of heart!”

— Spoken by a character · XII. IN WHICH PHILEAS FOGG AND HIS COMPANIONS VENTURE ACROSS THE INDIAN FORESTS, AND WHAT ENSUED

“Sometimes,” replied Phileas Fogg, quietly; “when I have the time.”

— Phileas Fogg · XII. IN WHICH PHILEAS FOGG AND HIS COMPANIONS VENTURE ACROSS THE INDIAN FORESTS, AND WHAT ENSUED

The artistic thing is, to unmask honest countenances; it’s no light task, I admit, but a real art.

— Spoken by a character · VI. IN WHICH FIX, THE DETECTIVE, BETRAYS A VERY NATURAL IMPATIENCE

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

— Passepartout · IX. IN WHICH THE RED SEA AND THE INDIAN OCEAN PROVE PROPITIOUS TO THE DESIGNS OF PHILEAS FOGG

A true Englishman doesn’t joke when he is talking about so serious a thing as a wager,” replied Phileas Fogg, solemnly. “I will bet twenty thousand pounds against anyone who wishes that I will make the tour of the world in eighty days or less; in nineteen hundred and twenty hours, or a hundred and fifteen thousand two hundred minutes.

— Phileas Fogg · III. IN WHICH A CONVERSATION TAKES PLACE WHICH SEEMS LIKELY TO COST PHILEAS FOGG DEAR

“A well-used minimum suffices for everything.”

— Spoken by a character · III. IN WHICH A CONVERSATION TAKES PLACE WHICH SEEMS LIKELY TO COST PHILEAS FOGG DEAR

Phileas Fogg had won his wager, and had made his journey around the world in eighty days.

It is better for us to see the destination we wish to reach, than the point of departure.

— Barbicane · III. THEIR PLACE OF SHELTER

Distance is but a relative expression, and must end by being reduced to zero.

— Spoken by a character · XIX. A MONSTER MEETING

Nothing can astound an American. It has often been asserted that the word “impossible” is not a French one. People have evidently been deceived by the dictionary. In America, all is easy, all is simple; and as for mechanical difficulties, they are overcome before they arise. Between Barbicane’s proposition and its realization no true Yankee would have allowed even the semblance of a difficulty to be possible. A thing with them is no sooner said than done.

What human being would ever have conceived the idea of such a journey? and, if such a person really existed, he must be an idiot, whom one would shut up in a lunatic ward, rather than within the walls of the projectile.

“Cheers for Edgar Poe!”

— Spoken by a character · II. PRESIDENT BARBICANE’S COMMUNICATION

The moon, by her comparative proximity, and the constantly varying appearances produced by her several phases, has always occupied a considerable share of the attention of the inhabitants of the earth.

Now when an American has an idea, he directly seeks a second American to share it. If there be three, they elect a president and two secretaries. Given four, they name a keeper of records, and the office is ready for work; five, they convene a general meeting, and the club is fully constituted.

Fancy has depicted men without reflection, others without shadow. But here reality, by the neutralizations of attractive forces, produced men in whom nothing had any weight, and who weighed nothing themselves.

Nothing is more dreadful than private duels in America. The two adversaries attack each other like wild beasts. Then it is that they might well covet those wonderful properties of the Indians of the prairies—their quick intelligence, their ingenious cunning, their scent of the enemy.

There is no one among you, my brave colleagues, who has not seen the Moon, or, at least, heard speak of it.

— Spoken by a character · II. PRESIDENT BARBICANE’S COMMUNICATION