The human mind delights in grand conceptions of supernatural beings. And the sea is precisely their best vehicle, the only medium through which these giants (against which terrestrial animals, such as elephants or rhinoceroses, are as nothing) can be produced or developed

One's native land!?there should one live! there die!

It seems wisest to assume the worst from the beginning...and let anything better come as a surprise.

Your dead sleep quietly, at least, Captain, out of reach of sharks" "Yes, sir, of sharks and men.

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

The colonists had no library at their disposal; but the engineer was a book which was always at hand, always open at the page which one wanted, a book which answered all their questions, and which they often consulted.

Well, gentlemen, do you believe in the possibility of aerial locomotion by machines heavier than air? ... You ask yourselves doubtless if this apparatus, so marvellously adapted for aerial locomotion, is susceptible of receiving greater speed. It is not worth while to conquer space if we cannot devour it. I wanted the air to be a solid support to me, and it is. I saw that to struggle against the wind I must be stronger than the wind, and I am.