The Mysterious Island Quotes

“It seems wisest to assume the worst from the beginning...and let anything better come as a surprise.”
― Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island

“It is a great misfortune to be alone, my friends; and it must be believed that solitude can quickly destroy reason.”
― Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island

“Before all masters, necessity is the one most listened to, and who teaches the best.”
― Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island

“What pen can describe this scene of marvellous horror; what pencil can portray it?”
― Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island

“All great actions return to God, from whom they are derived.”
― Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island

“In presence of Nature's grand convulsions man is powerless.”
― Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island

“What a big book, captain, might be made with all that is known!"
"And what a much bigger book still with all that is not known!”
― Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island

“He who is mistaken in an action which he sincerely believes to be right may be an enemy, but retains our esteem.”
― Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island

“Solitude, isolation, are painful things, and beyond human endurance.”
― Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island

“Man is never perfect, nor contended.”
― Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island

“So is man's heart. The desire to perform a work which will endure, which will survive him, is the origin of his superiority over all other living creatures here below. It is this which has established his dominion, and this it is which justifies it, over all the world.”
― Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island

“To the sheepfold!”
― Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island

“Better have two strings to one’s bow than none at all!”
― Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island

“One's native land!―there should one live! there die!”
― Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island

“Are we rising again?" "No. On the contrary." "Are we descending?" "Worse than that, captain! we are falling!”
― Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island

“Oh!' cried Neb, 'suppose it's jam!'
'I hope not,' replied the reporter.”
― Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island

“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.”
― Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island

“an energetic man will succeed where an indolent one would vegetate and inevitably perish.”
― Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island

“It is never worth while to do anything by halves.”
― Jules Verne, Die Originale - CD: Die geheimnisvolle Insel: Flg. 24

“The once slave, though free, would not leave his master. He would have died for him. He was a man of about thirty, vigorous, active, clever, intelligent, gentle, and calm, sometimes naive, always merry, obliging, and honest. His name was Nebuchadnezzar, but he only answered to the familiar abbreviation of Neb.”
― Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island

“Are we rising again?" "No. On the contrary." "Are we descending?" "Worse than that, captain! we are falling!" "For Heaven's sake heave out the ballast!" "There! the last sack is empty!" "Does the balloon rise?" "No!" "I hear a noise like the dashing of waves. The sea is below the car! It cannot be more than 500 feet from us!" "Overboard with every weight! … everything!”
― Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island

“I can undertake and persevere even without hope of success.”
― Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island

“But the past was no guarantee of the future.”
― Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island

“Là, enfin, tous furent heureux, unis dans le présent comme ils l'avaient été dans le passé; mais jamais ils ne devaient oublier cette île, sur laquelle ils étaient arrivés, pauvres et nus, cette île qui, pendant quatre ans, avait suffi à leurs besoins, et dont il ne restait plus qu'un morceau de granit battu par les lames du Pacifique, tombe de celui qui fut le capitaine Nemo!”
― Jules Verne, L'Île mystérieuse

“Je crains donc bien qu'il ne soit difficile d'y entrer, ayant vent et mer contre nous.”
― Jules Verne, L'Île mystérieuse

“Le Bonadventure passa devant cette côte, qu'il prolongea à la distance d'un demi-mille. Il fut facile de voir qu'elle se composait de blocs de toutes dimensions, depuis vingt pieds jusqu'à trois cents pieds de hauteur, et de toutes formes, cylindriques comme des tours, prismatiques comme des clochers, pyramidaux comme des obélisques, coniques comme des cheminées d'usine. Une banquise des mers glaciales n'eût pas été plus capricieusement dressée dans sa sublime horreur! Ici, des ponts jetés d'un roc à l'autre; là, des arceaux disposés comme ceux d'une nef, dont le regard ne pouvait découvrir la profondeur; en un endroit, de larges excavations, dont les voûtes présentaient un aspect monumental; en un autre, une véritable cohue de pointes, de pyramidions, de flèches comme aucune cathédrale gothique n'en a jamais compté. Tous les caprices de la nature, plus variés encore que ceux de l'imagination, dessinaient ce littoral grandiose, qui se prolongeait sur une longueur de huit à neuf milles.”
― Jules Verne, L'Île mystérieuse

“Cyrus Smith et ses compagnons regardaient avec un sentiment de surprise qui touchait à la stupéfaction.”
― Jules Verne, L'Île mystérieuse

“Better to put things at the worst at first," replied the engineer, "and reserve the best for a surprise.”
― Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island

“surveyed,”
― Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island（Illustrated）

“By the light of pine-branch torches, they carefully made their way down the dark galleries, searching the tiniest recesses, probing the slightest cranny. But everywhere they found silence and darkness. No human seemed to have set foot in these ancient corridors; no arm had ever pushed aside the stones that obstructed the path. They remained exactly as the volcano had created them in the island's earliest days, when the continuous flow of molten material caused land to appear in what was once an expanse of open sea.”
― Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island