Steam seems to have killed all gratitude in the hearts of sailors.

Man is so constituted that health is a purely negative state. Hunger once satisfied, it is difficult for a man to imagine the horrors of starvation; they cannot be understood without being felt.

With time and thought, one can do a good job.

Ah, monsieur, to live in the bosom of the sea! Only there can independence be found! There I recognize no master! There I am free!

The wisest man may be a blind father.

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.

Aures habent et non audient` - `They have ears but hear not