The sea is the vast reservoir of Nature. The globe began with sea, so to speak; and who knows if it will not end with it?
It was obvious that the matter had to be settled, and evasions were distasteful to me.
It may be taken for granted that, rash as the Americans are, when they are prudent there is good reason for it.
I looked on, I thought, I reflected, I admired, in a state of stupefaction not altogether unmingled with fear!
What pen can describe this scene of marvellous horror; what pencil can portray it?
And whichsoever way thou goest, may fortune follow.
He who is mistaken in an action which he sincerely believes to be right may be an enemy, but retains our esteem.
All great actions return to God, from whom they are derived.
In presence of Nature’s grand convulsions man is powerless.
Ah, monsieur, to live in the bosom of the sea! Only there can independence be found! There I recognize no master! There I am free!
Until I dicover the meaning of this sentence, I will neither eat nor sleep. “My dear uncle-” I began. “Nor you either,” he added.
The human mind delights in grand conceptions of supernatural beings.
Dinner was ready. Professor Lidenbrock did full justice to it, for his compulsory fast on board had turned his stomach into an unfathomable gulf.
But Phileas Fogg, who was not traveling, but only describing a circumfrence,...
On the earth, even in the darkest night, the light never wholly abandons his rule. It is diffused and subtle, but little as may remain, the retina of the eye is sensible of it.
I have been, am, in his service; I have seen his generosity and goodness; and I will never betray him-not for all the gold in the world. I have come from a village where they don’t eat that kind of bread.
Great robbers always resemble honest folk. Fellows who have rascally faces have only one course to take, and that is to remain honest; otherwise, they would be arrested off-hand.
If there were no thunder, men would have little fear of lightning.
Aures habent et non audient’ – ‘They have ears but hear not.
A true Englishman doesn’t joke when he is talking about so serious a thing as a wager.