Jules Verne

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.

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.

Put two ships in the open sea, without wind or tide, and, at last, they will come together. Throw two planets into space, and they will fall one on the other. Place two enemies in the midst of a crowd, and they will inevitably meet; it is a fatality, a question of time; that is all.

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!

A minimum put to good use is enough for anything.

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.

God, if he believed in Him, and his conscience, if he had one, were the only judges to whom he was answerable.

Your story is not a picture of life; it lacks the elements of truth. And why? Simply because you run straight on to the end; because you do not analyze. Your heroes do this thing or that from this or that motive, which you assign without ever a thought of dissecting their mental and moral natures. Our feelings, you must remember, are far more complex than all that. In real life every act is theresultant of a hundred thoughts that come and go, and theseyou must study, each by itself, if you would create a livingcharacter. 'But,' you will say, 'in order to note these fleetingthoughts one must know them, must be able to follow them in their capricious meanderings.You have simply to make use of hypnotism, electrical or human, which gives one a two-fold being, setting free the witness-personality so that it may see, understand, and remember the reasons which determine the personality that acts.

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

Before all masters, necessity is the one most listened to, and who teaches the best.

I wanted to protect my professorial dignity and not lay myself open to laughter from the Americans, who when they do laugh, laugh raucously

One of my objectives is learning more than is absolutely necessary.

Aures habent et non audient` - `They have ears but hear not

If there were no thunder, men would have little fear of lightning.

Help!"This was my last cry. My mouth filled with water, I struggled against being drawn the abyss. Suddenly my clothes were seized by a strong hand, and I felt myself quickly drawn up to the surface of the sea; and I heard, yes, I heard these words pronounced in my ear:"If master would be so good as to lean on my shoulder, master would swim with much greater ease."I seized with one hand my faithful Conseil's arm. "Is it you?" said I, "you?""Myself," answered Conseil; "and waiting master's orders.""That shock threw you as well as me in the sea?""No; but, being in my master's service, I followed him."The worthy fellow thought that was but natural.

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

Though sleep is called our best friend, it is a friend who often keeps us waiting!

While there is life, there is hope.