32 quotes
While his heart still beats, while his flesh still moves, I cannot accept that a being endowed with will-power can give in to despair.
Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864)
What good would it be to discuss such a proposition, when force could destroy the best arguments?
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870)
An energetic man will succeed where an indolent one would vegetate and inevitably perish.
The Mysterious Island (1874)
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.
Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864)
Civilization never recedes; the law of necessity ever forces it onwards.
The Mysterious Island (1874)
Poets are like proverbs: you can always find one to contradict another.
The Survivors of the Chancellor (1875)
But Heaven never sends unmixed grief, and for Professor Liedenbrock there was a satisfaction in store proportioned to his desperate anxieties.
Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864)
The Earth does not want new continents, but new men.
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870)
"Better to put things at the worst at first," replied the engineer, "and reserve the best for a surprise."
The Mysterious Island (1874)
He who is mistaken in an action which he sincerely believes to be right may be an enemy, but retains our esteem.
The Mysterious Island (1874)
It is a great misfortune to be alone, my friends; and it must be believed that solitude can quickly destroy reason.
The Mysterious Island (1874)
Before all masters, necessity is the one most listened to, and who teaches the best.
The Mysterious Island (1874)
In the memory of the dead all chronological differences are effaced.
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870)
The Great Architect of the Universe built it of good stuff.
Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864)
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.
Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864)
Their remains but the third class, the superstitious. These worthies were not content merely to rest in ignorance; they must know all about things which had no existence whatever.
We cannot prevent equilibrium from producing its effects. We may brave human laws, but we cannot resist natural ones.
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870)
Qui dit Canadien, dit Français.
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870)
As for seeing the town, he did not even think of it, being of that breed of Britons who have their servants do their sightseeing for them.
Around the World in Eighty Days (1873)
Man is never perfect, nor contented.
The Mysterious Island (1874)