The sole precoccupation of this learned society was the destruction of humanity for philanthropic reasons and the perfection of weapons as instruments of civilization.

A true Englishman doesn't joke when he is talking about so serious a thing as a wager.

Powder is but a thing of yesterday, and war is as old as the human race--unhappily.

Now when an American has an idea, he directly seeks a second American to share it. If there be three, they elect a president and two secretaries. Given four, they name a keeper of records, and the office is ready for work; five, they convene a general meeting, and the club is fully constituted.

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.

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

What a big book, captain, might be made with all that is known!" "And what a much bigger book still with all that is not known!