However, the balloon, lightened of heavy articles, such as ammunition, arms, and provisions, had risen into the higher layers of the atmosphere, to a height of 4,500 feet. The voyagers, after having discovered that the sea extended beneath them, and thinking the dangers above less dreadful than those below, did not hesitate to throw overboard even their most useful articles, while they endeavored to lose no more of that fluid, the life of their enterprise, which sustained them above the abyss.

Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real.

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

I am very bad at expressing tender sentiments. The very word 'love' frightens me.

What darkness to you is light to me

I looked on, I thought, I reflected, I admired, in a state of stupefaction not altogether unmingled with fear!

Solitude, isolation, are painful things, and beyond human endurance.