An English criminal, you know is always better concealed in London than anywhere else.

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

It must be, for there is a logic to everything on this earth and nothing is done without a reason, that God sometimes lets scientists discover.

But what then? What had he really gained by all this trouble? What had he brought back from this long and weary journey? Nothing, you say? Perhaps so; nothing but a charming woman, who, strange as it may appear, made him the happiest of men! Truly, would you not for less than that make the tour around the world?

It swam crossways in the direction of the Nautilus with great speed, watching us with its enormous staring green eyes. Its eight arms, or rather feet, fixed to its head, that have given the name of cephalopod to these animals, were twice as long as its body, and were twisted like the furies' hair.

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!

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