It swam crossways in the direction of the Nautilus with great speed, watching us with its enormous staring green eyes. Its eight arms, or rather feet, fixed to its head, that have given the name of cephalopod to these animals, were twice as long as its body, and were twisted like the furies' hair.

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

I had no need of sails to drive me, nor oars nor wheels to push me, nor rails to give me a faster road. Air is what I wanted, that was all. Air surrounds me as water surrounds the submarine boat, and in it my propellers act like the screws of a steamer. That is how I solved the problem of aviation. That is what a balloon will never do, nor will any machine that is lighter than air.

I have always fancied that the end of the world will be when some enormous boiler, heated to three thousand millions of atmospheric pressure, shall explode and blow up the globe. ... They [the Americans] are great boilermakers.

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.

I am nothing to you but Captain Nemo; and you and your companions are nothing to me but the passengers of the Nautilus.

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