I wanted to see what no one had yet observed, even if I had to pay for this curiosity with my life.

Dinner was ready. Professor Lidenbrock did full justice to it, for his compulsory fast on board had turned his stomach into an unfathomable gulf.

When I returned to partial life my face was wet with tears. How long that state of insensibility had lasted I cannot say. I had no means now of taking account of time. Never was solitude equal to this, never had any living being been so utterly forsaken.

The Great Architect of the universe built it of good firm stuff.

The earth does not need new continents, but new men.

The human mind delights in grand conceptions of supernatural beings.

Whatever one man is capable of imagining, other men will prove themselves capable of realizing.