Words matter. These are the best Jules Verne Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
When you bring a man two millions of money, you need have but little fear that you will not be well received.
The body regulates the soul, and, like the balance-wheel, it is submitted to regular oscillations.
Be it understood you are never rich when you get no advantage from it.
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.
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.
It is for others one must learn to do everything; for there lies the secret of happiness.
The Chinaman has only a passive courage, but this courage he possesses in the highest degree. His indifference to death is truly extraordinary. When he is ill, he sees it approach, and does not falter. When condemned, and already in the hands of an officer, he manifests no fear.
Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.
The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence.
Put two Yankees in a room together, and in an hour they will each have gained ten dollars from the other.
We may brave human laws, but we cannot resist natural ones.
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!
Man, a mere inhabitant of the earth, cannot overstep its boundaries! But though he is confined to its crust, he may penetrate into all its secrets.
I repeat that the distance between the earth and her satellite is a mere trifle, and undeserving of serious consideration. I am convinced that before twenty years are over, one-half of our earth will have paid a visit to the moon.
I seriously believed that my last hour was approaching, and yet, so strange is imagination, all I thought of was some childish hypothesis or other. In such circumstances, you do not choose your own thoughts. They overcome you.
‘Movement is life;’ and it is well to be able to forget the past, and kill the present by continual change.
A true Englishman doesn’t joke when he is talking about so serious a thing as a wager.
When the mind once allows a doubt to gain entrance, the value of deeds performed grow less, their character changes, we forget the past and dread the future.
You’re never rich enough if you can be richer.
The sea does not belong to despots. Upon its surface men can still exercise unjust laws, fight, tear one another to pieces, and be carried away with terrestrial horrors. But at thirty feet below its level, their reign ceases, their influence is quenched, and their power disappears.
To put up with what you cannot avoid is a philosophical principle, that may not perhaps lead you to the accomplishment of great deeds, but is assuredly eminently practical.
The possession of wealth leads almost inevitably to its abuse. It is the chief, if not the only, cause of evils which desolate this world below. The thirst for gold is responsible for the most regrettable lapses into sin.
It is said that the night brings counsel, but it is not said that the counsel is necessarily good.
Fellows who have rascally faces have only one course to take, and that is to remain honest; otherwise, they would be arrested off-hand.
He who is mistaken in an action which he sincerely believes to be right may be an enemy, but retains our esteem.
Numerous observations made upon fevers, somnambulisms, and other human maladies, seem to prove that the moon does exercise some mysterious influence upon man.
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.
Nothing is more dreadful than private duels in America. The two adversaries attack each other like wild beasts. Then it is that they might well covet those wonderful properties of the Indians of the prairies – their quick intelligence, their ingenious cunning, their scent of the enemy.
Dost thou know what life is, my child? Hast thou comprehended the action of those springs which produce existence? Hast thou examined thyself?
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?
Civilization never recedes; the law of necessity ever forces it onwards.
The regions of the North Pole situated within the eighty-fourth degree of north latitude have not yet been utilized, for the very good reason that they have not yet been discovered.
Trains, like time and tide, stop for no one.
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?
The industrial stomach cannot live without coal; industry is a carbonivorous animal and must have its proper food.
When one has taken root, one puts out branches.
Before all masters, necessity is the one most listened to, and who teaches the best.
Imagine a society in which there were neither rich nor poor. What evils, afflictions, sorrows, disorders, catastrophes, disasters, tribulations, misfortunes, agonies, calamities, despair, desolation and ruin would be unknown to man!
I believe cats to be spirits come to earth. A cat, I am sure, could walk on a cloud without coming through.
In the United States, there is no project so audacious for which people cannot be found to guarantee the cost and find the working expenses.
In presence of Nature’s grand convulsions, man is powerless.
If Providence has created the stars and the planets, man has called the cannonball into existence.
An energetic man will succeed where an indolent one would vegetate and inevitably perish.
Nothing can astound an American. It has often been asserted that the word ‘impossible’ is not a French one. People have evidently been deceived by the dictionary. In America, all is easy, all is simple; and as for mechanical difficulties, they are overcome before they arise.
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.
