Journey to the Center of the Earth

by Jules Verne

Armed with his hammer, his steel pointer, his magnetic needles, his blowpipe, and his bottle of nitric acid, he was a powerful man of science.

But the man had no notion how to wait; nature herself was too slow for him.

“Descend, bold traveler, into the crater of the jokul of Sneffels, which the shadow of Scartaris touches before the calends of July, and you will attain the center of the earth. Which I have done, Arne Saknussemm.”

He is a bold philosopher, a man of immense courage, and you must remember that his blood flows in your veins.

Are not all bodies subject throughout their mass to the power of universal attraction?

“Science, my lad, has been built upon many errors; but they are errors that it was good to fall into, for they led to the truth.”

The genius of discovery possessed me wholly. I forgot the past, I scorned the future.

“Yes, I do; as long as the heart beats, as long as body and soul keep together, I cannot admit that any creature endowed with a will has need to despair of life.”