I believe cats to be spirits come to earth. A cat, I am sure, could walk on a cloud without coming through.

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.

The sea is the vast reservoir of Nature. The globe began with sea, so to speak; and who knows if it will not end with it?

Man is never perfect nor contented.

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

I looked on, I thought, I reflected, I admired, in a state of stupefaction not altogether unmingled with fear!

I believe cats to be spirits come to earth. A cat, I am sure, could walk on a cloud without coming through.