Jules Verne Quotes

I discovered it, ventured into it, and before long, sir, you too will have passed through my Arabian tunnel! ~ Jules Verne

Everybody knows that England is the world of betting men, who are of a higher class than mere gamblers: to bet is in the English temperament. ~ Jules Verne

When one has taken root, one puts out branches. ~ Jules Verne

Reality provides us with facts so romantic that imagination itself could add nothing to them. ~ Jules Verne

It may be taken for granted that, rash as the Americans are, when they are prudent there is good reason for it. ~ Jules Verne

This lucid explanation of the phenomena we had witnessed appeared to me quite satisfactory. However great and mighty the marvels of nature may seem to us, they are always to be explained by physical reasons. Everything is subordinate to some great law of nature. ~ Jules Verne

question. On the 20th of July, 1866, the steamer Governor Higginson, of the Calcutta and Burnach Steam Navigation Company, had met this moving mass five miles off the east coast of Australia. Captain Baker thought at first that he was in the presence of an unknown sandbank; he even prepared to determine its exact position when two columns of water, projected by the mysterious object, shot with a hissing noise a hundred and fifty feet up into the air. Now, unless the sandbank had been submitted to the intermittent eruption of a geyser, the Governor Higginson had to do neither more nor less than with an aquatic mammal, unknown till then, which threw up from ~ Jules Verne

A true Englishman never jokes when he has a stake depending on the matter. ~ Jules Verne

The earth does not want new continents, but new men. ~ Jules Verne

these words of wisdom, so rarely understood: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill towards men. ~ Jules Verne

Oysters are the only food that never causes indigestion. Indeed, a man would have to eat sixteen dozen of these acephalous molluscs in order to gain the 315 grammes of nitrogen he requires daily. ~ Jules Verne

A man of action as well as a man of thought, all he did was without effort to one of his vigorous and sanguine temperament. ~ Jules Verne

The man who was born to be hung will never be drowned! ~ Jules Verne

Most annoying circumstances have brought you into the presence of a man who has broken all the ties of humanity. You have come to trouble my existence. ~ Jules Verne

We now know most things that can be measured in this world, except the bounds of human ambition! ~ Jules Verne

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

All were indiscriminately condemned to death; but one out of three only were really executed. Ten cannon were placed on the drilling-ground, a prisoner fastened to each of their mouths, and five times were the ten guns fired, covering the plain with mutilated remains, in the midst of air tainted with the smell of burning flesh. These men, as M. de Valbezen says in his book called "Nouvelles Etudes sur les Anglais et l'lnde," nearly all died with that heroic indifference which Indians know so well how to preserve even in the very face of death. "No need to bind me, captain," said a fine young sepoy, twenty years of age, to one of the officers present at the execution; and as he spoke he carelessly stroked the instrument of death. "No need to bind me; I have no wish to run away." Such was the first and horrible execution, which was to be followed by so many others. At ~ Jules Verne

Ah!' said Michel, tempted, 'you have modern poems?'
'Of course. For instance, Martillac's 'Electric Harmonies,' which won a prize last year from the Academic of Sciences, and Monsieur de Pulfasse's 'Meditations on Oxygen;' and we have the 'Poetic Parallelogram,' and even the 'Decarbonated Odes ... '
Michel couldn't bear hearing another word and found himself outside again, stupefied and overcome. Not even this tiny amount of art had escaped the pernicious influence of the age! Science, Chemistry, Mechanics had invaded the realm of poetry! 'And such things are read,' he murmured as he hurried through the streets, ' perhaps even bought! And signed by the authors and placed on the shelves marked 'Literature.' But not one copy of Balzac, not one work by Victor Hugo! Where can I find such things-where, if not the Library ... ~ Jules Verne

Anything you can imagine you can make real. ~ Jules Verne

But what then? What had he really gained by all this trouble? What had he brought back from this long and weary journey?
Nothing, you say? 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? ~ Jules Verne

A man of merit owes himself to the homage of the rest of mankind who recognize his worth. ~ Jules Verne

Night came. The moon was entering her first quarter, and her insufficient light would soon die out in the mist on the horizon. Clouds were rising from the east, and already overcast a part of the heavens. ~ Jules Verne

I can undertake and persevere even without hope of success. ~ Jules Verne

On the morrow the horizon was covered with clouds- a thick and impenetrable curtain between earth and sky, which unhappily extended as far as the Rocky Mountains. It was a fatality! ~ Jules Verne

I am the law, and I am the judge! ~ Jules Verne

As for the orchestra,' Quinsonnas continued, 'it has fallen very low since his instrument no longer suffices to feed the instrumentalist! Talk about a trade that's not practical. Ah, if we could use the power wasted on the pedals of a piano for pumping water out of coal mines! If the air escaping from ophicleides could also be used to turn the Catacomb Company's windmills! If the trombone's alternating action could be applied to a mechanical sawmill - oh, then the executants would be rich and many! ~ Jules Verne

During the War of the Rebellion, a new and influential club was established in the city of Baltimore in the State of Maryland ~ Jules Verne

Civilization is like air or water. Wherever there is a passage, be it only a fissure, it will penetrate and modify the conditions of a country. ~ Jules Verne

Besides," said Kennedy, "the time when industry gets a grip of everything and uses it to its own advantage may not be particularly amusing. If men go on inventing machinery they'll end up by being swallowed by their own machines. I've always thought that the last day will be brought about by some colossal boiler heated to three thousand atmospheres blowing up the world."
"And I bet the Yankees will have had a hand in it," said Joe. ~ Jules Verne

A true Englishman doesn't joke when he is talking about so serious a thing as a wager. ~ Jules Verne

Passepartout was astounded, and, though ready to attempt anything to get over Medicine Creek, thought the experiment proposed a little too American. ~ Jules Verne

But I am letting myself be carried away by reveries which I must now put aside. Enough of these phantasies. ~ Jules Verne

Could it have passed away in electric sheets, as is sometimes the case with regard to the typhoons of the Indian Ocean? ~ Jules Verne

I thanked God for having led me through the labyrinth of darkness to the only point at which the voices of my companions could reach me. (p. 122) ~ Jules Verne

So all that fame had lasted less than a hundred years! Les Orientales, Les Meditations, La Comedie Humaine - forgotten, lost, unknown! Yet here were huge crates of books which giant steam cranes were unloading in the courtyards, and buyers were crowding around the purchase desk. But one of them was asking for 'Stress Theory' in twenty volumes, another for an 'Abstract of Electric Problems', this one for 'A Practical Treatise for the Lubrication of Driveshafts', and that one for the latest 'Monograph on Cancer of the Brain'. 'How strange!' mused Michel. 'All of science and industry here, just as at school, nothing for art!' I must sound like a madman asking for literary works here - am I insane? ~ Jules Verne

There is no more sagacious animal than the Icelandic horse. He is stopped by neither snow, nor storm, nor impassable roads, nor rocks, glaciers, or anything. He is courageous, sober, and surefooted. He never makes a false step, never shies. If there is a river or fjord to cross (and we shall meet with many) you will see him plunge in at once, just as if he were amphibious, and gain the opposite bank. ~ Jules Verne

As I remarked before, the Asiatic elephant is smaller than the African, which is frequently twelve feet high, and its tusks are in proportion. In the island of Ceylon a certain number of animals are found deprived of these appendages, but "mucknas," which is the name given them, are rare on the mainland of India. Behind ~ Jules Verne

If Providence has created the stars and the planets, man has called the cannonball into existence. ~ Jules Verne

Mr. Phileas Fogg lived, in 1872, at No. 7, Saville Row, Burlington Gardens, the house in which Sheridan died in 1814. He was one of the most noticeable members of the Reform Club, though he seemed always to avoid attracting attention; an enigmatical personage, about whom little was known, except that he was a polished man of the world. People said that he resembled Byron - at least that his head was Byronic; but he was a bearded, tranquil Byron, who might live on a thousand years without growing old. ~ Jules Verne

Whence, it may be asked, had come that plaything of the tempest? From what part of the world did it rise? It surely could not have started during the storm. ~ Jules Verne

I wasn't a big science-fiction fan growing up. But I loved Jules Verne and Sherlock Holmes. Both came into play on 'The X-Files.' ~ Chris Carter

You cannot oppose reasoning to pride, the principal of all the vices, since, by its very nature, the proud man refuses to listen to it. ~ Jules Verne

It is certain that the inanimate objects by which you are surrounded have a direct action on the brain. ~ Jules Verne

As a kid I read Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, and a few others. As an adult have admired Leonardo da Vinci's drawings and notebooks. ~ Viggo Mortensen

Sometimes I feel that a more rational explanation for all that has happened during my lifetime is that I am still only thirteen years old, reading Jules Verne or H. G. Wells, and have fallen asleep. ~ Stanislaw Ulam

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea," translated Florent. "By Jules Verne. This book I have not read in many years."

"We're reading it in French class," Joseph said. "It's hard to understand, but I found a line that Uncle Albert would love."

Florent opened to a dog-eared page where Joseph had underlined a sentence and written the translation in the margin. Florent read it out loud. "'Let me tell you, Professor, that you will not regret the time spent on board. You are going to travel in a a land of marvels. ~ Brian Selznick

Then a door opened into a kitchen nine feet long, situated between the large store-rooms. There electricity, better than gas itself, did all the cooking. ~ Jules Verne

A cow peacefully grazing fifty yards away received one of the bullets in her back. She had nothing to do with the quarrel all the same. ~ Jules Verne

Hope is so firmly rooted in the heart of man! ~ Jules Verne

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

Now we are seeing the disadvantage of not knowing every language," said Conseil "or is it the disadvantage of not having a universal language? ~ Jules Verne

Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real. ~ Jules Verne

A moving wall of oxen advanced, and our mighty elephant himself was brought to a standstill. There was nothing to regret in this enforced halt, however, for a most curious spectacle was presented to our observations. A drove of four or five thousand oxen encumbered the road, and, as our guide had supposed, they belonged to a caravan of Brinjarees. "These people," said Banks, "are the Zingaris of Hindostan. They are a people rather than a tribe, and have no fixed abode, dwelling under tents in summer, in huts during the winter or rainy season. They are the porters and carriers of India, and I saw how they worked during the insurrection of 1857. By a sort of tacit agreement between the belligerents, their convoys were permitted to pass through the disturbed provinces. In fact, they kept up the supply of provisions to both armies. If these Brinjarees belong to one part of India more than to another, I should say it was Rajpootana, and perhaps more particularly the kingdom of Milwar. ~ Jules Verne

Between the ages of ten and fifteen in St. Petersburg, I must have read more fiction and poetry - English, Russian and French - than in any other five-year period of my life. I relished especially the works of Wells, Poe, Browning, Keats, Flaubert, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Chekhov, Tolstoy, and Alexander Blok. On another level, my heroes were the Scarlet Pimpernel, Phileas Fogg, and Sherlock Holmes. In other words, I was a perfectly normal trilingual child in a family with a large library. At a later period, in Western Europe, between the ages of 20 and 40, my favorites were Housman, Rupert Brooke, Norman Douglas, Bergson, Joyce, Proust, and Pushkin. Of these top favorites, several - Poe, Jules Verne, Emmuska Orezy, Conan Doyle, and Rupert Brooke - have lost the glamour and thrill they held for me. The others remain intact and by now are probably beyond change as far as I am concerned. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

Music is no longer tasted it is swallowed. ~ Jules Verne

Nature's creative power is far beyond man's instinct of destruction. ~ Jules Verne

Therever fortune clears a way, thither our ready footsteps stray. ~ Jules Verne

Savages!' he echoed, ironically. 'You set foot on one of the shores of this globe, professor, and you're surprised to find savages? Where aren't there savages? Besides, are they any worse than others, these whom you call savages? ~ Jules Verne

However, everything has an end, everything passes away, even the hunger of people who have not eaten ~ Jules Verne

It must be that a man who shuts himself up between four walls must lose the faculty of associating ideas and words. ~ Jules Verne

Better to put things at the worst at first and reserve the best for a surprise. ~ Jules Verne

Dost thou know what life is, my child? Hast thou comprehended the action of those springs which produce existence? Hast thou examined thyself? ~ Jules Verne

I've been an itinerant singer, a circus-rider, when I used to vault like Leotard, and dance on a rope like Blondin. Then I got to be a professor of gymnastics, so as to make better use of my talents; and then I was a sergeant fireman at Paris, and assisted at many a big fire. But I quitted France five years ago, and, wishing to taste the sweets of domestic life, took service as a valet here in England. ~ Jules Verne

What use are the best of arguments when they can be destroyed by force? ~ Jules Verne

The industrial stomach cannot live without coal; industry is a carbonivorous animal and must have its proper food. ~ Jules Verne

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

THEY'D CHANGE THE AXIS OF THE EARTH!

There are fortunes to be made in polar real estate! Just change the climate of both poles, warm them up, give them mild winters and pleasant summers, and watch the boom! At the same time, cool off the tropics, clear out the jungles, and there's billions more in it!

That was the scheme of the famous Gun Club, the same space engineers who had fired the shot "From the Earth to the Moon." The story of how they planned to change the face of the Earth itself is a Jules Verne classic long out of print that's a delight to read and a real adventure in logical super-science. ~ Jules Verne

Every day I would run to the library to get new books. Reading was a passion: I wanted to understand life. I read Dostoevsky and Brehm, Jules Verne and Turgenev, Dickens and the Zhivopisnoye Obozreniye; and the more I read, th emore I doubted everything. Lies surrounded me on all sides; one moment I wanted to run off to the Indian jungle, the next to throw a bomb at the governor-general's house on Tverskaya, the next to hang myself. ~ Ilya Ehrenburg

Yes, forgotten by all else, but not by us. ~ Jules Verne

Man is never perfect, nor contended. ~ Jules Verne

It is certain," exclaimed my uncle in a tone of triumph. "But silence, do you hear me? silence upon the whole subject; and let no one get before us in this design of discovering the centre of the earth. ~ Jules Verne

When science has uttered her voice, let babblers hold their peace. ~ Jules Verne

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

With its untold depths, couldn't the sea keep alive such huge specimens of life from another age, this sea that never changes while the land masses undergo almost continuous alteration? Couldn't the heart of the ocean hide the last–remaining varieties of these titanic species, for whom years are centuries and centuries millennia? ~ Jules Verne

Died in 1814. He was ~ Jules Verne

Is not a woman's heart unfathomable? ~ Jules Verne

There are no impossible obstacles; there are just stronger and weaker wills, that's all! ~ Jules Verne

Man is so constituted that health is a purely negative state. Hunger once satisfied, it is difficult for a man to imagine the horrors of starvation; they cannot be understood without being felt. ~ Jules Verne

If the thing is feasible, the first to do it ought to be an Englishman. ~ Jules Verne

I saw the world. I learnt of new cultures. I flew across an ocean. I wore women's clothing. Made a friend. Fell in love. Who cares if I lost a wager? Queen Victoria: I do! I've got 20 quid riding on you ~ Jules Verne

Liberty is worth paying for. ~ Jules Verne

IN WHICH PASSEPARTOUT RECEIVES A NEW PROOF THAT FORTUNE FAVORS THE BRAVE ~ Jules Verne

It was obvious that the matter had to be settled, and evasions were distasteful to me. ~ Jules Verne

Thus were formed those immense coalfields, which nevertheless, are not inexhaustible, and which three centuries at the present accelerated rate of consumption will exhaust unless the industrial world will devise a remedy. ~ Jules Verne

the coast, irregular ~ Jules Verne

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 ~ Jules Verne

The Danube is not blue, as Karl Isidore Beck calls it in the lines which suggested to Strauss the fetching, mendacious title of his waltz. The Danube is blond, 'a szöke Duna', as the Hungarians say, but even that 'blond' is a Magyar gallantry, or a French one, since in 1904 Gaston Lavergnolle called it Le Beau Danube blond. More down to earth, Jules Verne thought of entitling a novel Le Beau Danube jaune. Muddy yellow is the water that grows murky at the bottom of these [the Strudlhof] steps. ~ Claudio Magris

An Englishman does not joke about such an important matter as a bet. ~ Jules Verne

you must never make snap judgments about your fellow man. ~ Jules Verne

Are we rising again?" "No. On the contrary." "Are we descending?" "Worse than that, captain! we are falling! ~ Jules Verne

Better have two strings to one's bow than none at all! ~ Jules Verne

Everything is possible for an eccentric, especially when he is English. ~ Jules Verne

All great actions return to God, from whom they are derived. ~ Jules Verne

You are going to visit the land of marvels. ~ Jules Verne

Civilization never recedes; the law of necessity ever forces it onwards. ~ Jules Verne

There's a reason why Jules Verne chose the place where the glacier was, where we start to descend into the center of the earth. That area specifically has magical powers and people come to this place from all over the world. I actually think that's true of all Iceland. I think it's so special, apart from the water and air being so clean. ~ Anita Briem

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

But to find, all at once, right before your eyes, that the impossible had been mysteriously achieved by man himself: this staggers the mind! ~ Jules Verne

Wait a few minutes, our lantern will be lit, and, if you like light places, you will be satisfied. ~ Jules Verne

In presence of Nature's grand convulsions man is powerless. ~ Jules Verne