Quotes from Jules Verne

He must have travelled everywhere, at least in the spirit.

It was all very well for an Englishman like Mr. Fogg to make the tour of the world with a carpet-bag; a lady could not be expected to travel comfortably under such conditions.

I am very bad at expressing tender sentiments. The very word 'love' frightens me.

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

I believe cats to be spirits come to earth. A cat, I am sure, could walk on a cloud without coming through.

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 Nautilus was piercing the water with its sharp spur, after having accomplished nearly ten thousand leagues in three months and a half, a distance greater than the great circle of the earth. Where were we going now, and what was reserved for the future?

We are of opinion that instead of letting books grow moldy behind an iron grating, far from the vulgar gaze, it is better to let them wear out by being read.

We were alone. Where, I could not say, hardly imagine. All was black, and such a dense black that, after some minutes, my eyes had not been able to discern even the faintest glimmer.

Whatever one man is capable of conceiving, other men will be able to achieve.

Put two Yankees in a room together, and in an hour they will each have gained ten dollars from the other.

The Yankees, the first mechanicians in the world, are engineers - just as the Italians are musicians and the Germans metaphysicians - by right of birth. Nothing is more natural, therefore, than to perceive them applying their audacious ingenuity to the science of gunnery.

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.

Science, my boy, is composed of errors, but errors that it is right to make, for they lead step by step to the truth.

He who is mistaken in an action which he sincerely believes to be right may be an enemy, but retains our esteem.

In consequence of inventing machines, men will be devoured by them.

In spite of the opinions of certain narrow-minded people, who would shut up the human race upon this globe, as within some magic circle it must never outstep, we shall one day travel to the moon, the planets, and the stars, with the same facility, rapidity, and certainty as we now make the voyage from Liverpool to New York!

Far better to be the simplest pedestrian, with knapsack on back, stick in hand, and gun on shoulder, than an Indian prince travelling with all the ceremonial which his rank requires.

Everybody knows that the great reversed triangle of land, with its base in the north and its apex in the south, which is called India, embraces fourteen hundred thousand square miles, upon which is spread unequally a population of one hundred and eighty millions of souls.

Ah! Young people, travel if you can, and if you cannot - travel all the same!

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

How many persons condemned to the horrors of solitary confinement have gone mad - simply because the thinking faculties have lain dormant!

Solitude, isolation, are painful things and beyond human endurance.

We were alone. Where, I could not say, hardly imagine. All was black, and such a dense black that, after some minutes, my eyes had not been able to discern even the faintest glimmer.