Man is never perfect nor contented.

Wherever he saw a hole he always wanted to know the depth of it. To him this was important.

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.

How many things have been denied one day, only to become realities the next!

Yes, I could see these enormous elephants, whose trunks were tearing down large boughs, and working in and out the trees like a legion of serpents. I could hear the sounds of the mighty tusks uprooting huge trees!

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

Dinner was ready. Professor Lidenbrock did full justice to it, for his compulsory fast on board had turned his stomach into an unfathomable gulf.