Hunger, prolonged, is temporary madness! The brain is at work without its required food, and the most fantastic notions fill the mind. Hitherto I had never known what hunger really meant. I was likely to understand it now.

We were alone. Where, I could not say, hardly imagine. All was black, and such a dense black that, after some minutes, my eyes had not been able to discern even the faintest glimmer.

I believe that water will one day be employed as fuel, that hydrogen and oxygen which constitute it, used singly or together, will furnish an inexhaustible source of heat and light, of an intensity of which coal is not capable.

How tranquil is a coral tomb, and may the heavens grant that my companions and I be buried in no other!

A scholar has to know a little of everything.

All that is impossible remains to be accomplished.

Science, my boy, is composed of errors, but errors that it is right to make, for they lead step by step to the truth.