Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea 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.

“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.”

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