Jules Verne
Jules Verne (8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French writer best known as a pioneering author in science fiction.
Quotes
editVoyage au Centre de la Terre. Trans. Frederick Amadeus Malleson (1877). French text here. English text here.
Les ondulations de ces montagnes infinies, que leurs couches de neige semblaient rendre écumantes, rappelaient à mon souvenir la surface d'une mer agitée. Si je me retournais vers l'ouest, l'Océan s'y développait dans sa majestueuse étendue, comme une continuation de ces sommets moutonneux. Où finissait la terre, où commençaient les flots, mon oeil le distinguait à peine.
Je me plongeais ainsi dans cette prestigieuse extase que donnent les hautes cimes, et cette fois, sans vertige, car je m'accoutumais enfin à ces sublimes contemplations. Mes regards éblouis se baignaient dans la transparente irradiation des rayons solaires, j'oubliais qui j'étais, où j'étais, pour vivre de la vie des elfes ou des sylphes, imaginaires habitants de la mythologie scandinave; je m'enivrais de la volupté des hauteurs, sans songer aux abîmes dans lesquels ma destinée allait me plonger avant peu.
The undulation of these infinite numbers of mountains, whose snowy summits make them look as if covered by foam, recalled to my remembrance the surface of a storm-beaten ocean. If I looked towards the west, the ocean lay before me in all its majestic grandeur, a continuation as it were, of these fleecy hilltops. Where the earth ended and the sea began it was impossible for the eye to distinguish.
I soon felt that strange and mysterious sensation which is awakened in the mind when looking down from lofty hilltops, and now I was able to do so without any feeling of nervousness, having fortunately hardened myself to that kind of sublime contemplation. I wholly forgot who I was, and where I was. I became intoxicated with a sense of lofty sublimity, without thought of the abysses into which my daring was soon about to plunge me.
- Ch. XVI: Boldly down the crater
- Mais aux grandes douleurs le ciel mêle incessamment les grandes joies, et il réservait au professeur Lidenbrock une satisfaction égale à ses désespérants ennuis.
- But Heaven never sends unmixed grief, and for Professor Liedenbrock there was a satisfaction in store proportioned to his desperate anxieties.
- Ch. XVI: Boldly down the crater
- But Heaven never sends unmixed grief, and for Professor Liedenbrock there was a satisfaction in store proportioned to his desperate anxieties.
- Les objets extérieurs ont une action réelle sur le cerveau. Qui s’enferme entre quatre murs finit par perdre la faculté d’associer les idées et les mots. Que de prisonniers cellulaires devenus imbéciles, sinon fous, par le défaut d’exercice des facultés pensantes.
- External objects produce decided effects upon the brain. A man shut up between four walls soon loses the power to associate words and ideas together. How many prisoners in solitary confinement become idiots, if not mad, for want of exercise for the thinking faculty!
- Ch. XXVI: The worst peril of all
- External objects produce decided effects upon the brain. A man shut up between four walls soon loses the power to associate words and ideas together. How many prisoners in solitary confinement become idiots, if not mad, for want of exercise for the thinking faculty!
- Je ne puis peindre mon désespoir; nul mot de la langue humaine ne rendrait mes sentiments. J’étais enterré vif, avec la perspective de mourir dans les tortures de la faim et de la soif.
- To describe my despair would be impossible. No words could tell it. I was buried alive, with the prospect before me of dying of hunger and thirst.
- Ch. XXVII: Lost in the bowels of the earth
- To describe my despair would be impossible. No words could tell it. I was buried alive, with the prospect before me of dying of hunger and thirst.
- La science, mon garçon, est faite d’erreurs, mais d’erreurs qu’il est bon de commettre, car elles mènent peu à peu à la vérité.
- Science, my lad, has been built upon many errors; but they are errors which it was good to fall into, for they led to the truth.
- Ch. XXXI: Preparations for a voyage of discovery
- Science, my lad, has been built upon many errors; but they are errors which it was good to fall into, for they led to the truth.
- Le grand architecte de l'univers l'a construite on bons matériaux.
- The Great Architect of the universe built it of good stuff.
- Ch. XXXI in the French text, Tr. William Butcher (1992)
- The Great Architect of the universe built it of good stuff.
- 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.
- Ch. XLI: The great explosion and the rush down below
- These sentences, from an early translation of the book (Griffith and Farran, 1871), have no source in the original French text.
- Ch. XLI: The great explosion and the rush down below
- L’homme est ainsi fait, que sa santé est un effet purement négatif; une fois le besoin de manger satisfait, on se figure difficilement les horreurs de la faim; il faut les éprouver, pour les comprendre.
- Man is so constituted that health is a purely negative state. Hunger once satisfied, it is difficult for a man to imagine the horrors of starvation; they cannot be understood without being felt.
- Ch. XLII: Headlong speed upward through the horrors of darkness
- Man is so constituted that health is a purely negative state. Hunger once satisfied, it is difficult for a man to imagine the horrors of starvation; they cannot be understood without being felt.
- Et tant que son coeur bat, tant que sa chair palpite, je n'admets pas qu'un être doué de volonté laisse en lui place au désespoir.
- While his heart still beats, while his flesh still moves, I cannot accept that a being endowed with will-power can give in to despair.
- Ch. XLII in the French text, Tr. William Butcher (1992)
- While his heart still beats, while his flesh still moves, I cannot accept that a being endowed with will-power can give in to despair.
From the Earth to the Moon (1865)
editDe la Terre à la Lune. Trans. French text here. English text here.
- Or, quand un Américain a une idée, il cherche un second Américain qui la partage. Sont-ils trois, ils élisent un président et deux secrétaires. Quatre, ils nomment un archiviste, et le bureau fonctionne. Cinq, ils se convoquent en assemblée générale, et le club est constitué.
- Now when an American has an idea, he directly seeks a second American to share it. If there be three, they elect a president and two secretaries. Given four, they name a keeper of records, and the office is ready for work; five, they convene a general meeting, and the club is fully constituted.
- Ch. I: The Gun Club
- Now when an American has an idea, he directly seeks a second American to share it. If there be three, they elect a president and two secretaries. Given four, they name a keeper of records, and the office is ready for work; five, they convene a general meeting, and the club is fully constituted.
- Rien ne saurait étonner un Américain. On a souvent répété que le mot "impossible" n’était pas français; on s’est évidemment trompé de dictionnaire. En Amérique, tout est facile, tout est simple, et quant aux difficultés mécaniques, elles sont mortes avant d’être nées. Entre le projet Barbicane et sa réalisation, pas un véritable Yankee ne se fût permis d’entrevoir l’apparence d’une difficulté. Chose dite, chose faite.
- Nothing can astound an American. It has often been asserted that the word "impossible" is not a French one. People have evidently been deceived by the dictionary. In America, all is easy, all is simple; and as for mechanical difficulties, they are overcome before they arise. Between Barbicane's proposition and its realization no true Yankee would have allowed even the semblance of a difficulty to be possible. A thing with them is no sooner said than done.
- Ch. III: Effect of the President's Communication
- Nothing can astound an American. It has often been asserted that the word "impossible" is not a French one. People have evidently been deceived by the dictionary. In America, all is easy, all is simple; and as for mechanical difficulties, they are overcome before they arise. Between Barbicane's proposition and its realization no true Yankee would have allowed even the semblance of a difficulty to be possible. A thing with them is no sooner said than done.
- L’astre des nuits, par sa proximité relative et le spectacle rapidement renouvelé de ses phases diverses, a tout d’abord partagé avec le Soleil l’attention des habitants de la Terre.
- The moon, by her comparative proximity, and the constantly varying appearances produced by her several phases, has always occupied a considerable share of the attention of the inhabitants of the earth.
- Ch. V: The Romance of the Moon
- The moon, by her comparative proximity, and the constantly varying appearances produced by her several phases, has always occupied a considerable share of the attention of the inhabitants of the earth.
- Restait en dernier lieu la classe superstitieuse des ignorants; ceux-lá ne se contentent pas d'ignorer, ils savent ce qui n'est pas.
- Their remains but the third class, the superstitious. These worthies were not content merely to rest in ignorance; they must know all about things which had no existence whatever.
- Ch. VI: The Permissive Limits of Ignorance and Belief in the United States (Charles Scribner's Sons "Uniform Edition", 1890, p. 31)
- Variant: There was the class of superstitious people; they are not content simply to ignore what is true, they also believe what is not true.
- Tr. Walter James Miller (1978)
- Their remains but the third class, the superstitious. These worthies were not content merely to rest in ignorance; they must know all about things which had no existence whatever.
- Ils faisaient à autrui ce qu'ils ne voulaient pas qu'on leur fît, principe immoral sur lequel repose tout l’art de la guerre.
- They did to others that which they would not they should do to them—that grand principle of immorality upon which rests the whole art of war.
- Ch. X: One Enemy v. Twenty-five Millions of Friends (Charles Scribner's Sons "Uniform Edition", 1890, p. 50)
- Variant: They did unto others what they would not have others do unto them, an immoral principle that is the basic premise of the art of war.
- Tr. Walter James Miller (1978)
- They did to others that which they would not they should do to them—that grand principle of immorality upon which rests the whole art of war.
- À en croire certains esprits bornés, — c'est le qualificatif qui leur convient, — l'humanité serait renfermée dans un cercle de Popilius qu'elle ne saurait franchir, et condamnée à végéter sur ce globe sans jamais pouvoir s'élancer dans les espaces planétaires! Il n'en est rien! On va aller à la Lune, on ira aux planètes, on ira aux étoiles, comme on va aujourd'hui de Liverpool à New York, facilement, rapidement, sûrement, et l'océan atmosphérique sera bientôt traversé comme les océans de la Lune!
- In spite of the opinions of certain narrow-minded people, who would shut up the human race upon this globe, as within some magic circle which it must never outstep, we shall one day travel to the moon, the planets, and the stars, with the same facility, rapidity, and certainty as we now make the voyage from Liverpool to New York!
- Ch. XIX: A Monster Meeting (Charles Scribner's Sons "Uniform Edition", 1890, p. 93)
- Variant: If we are to believe certain narrow minded people — and what else can we call them? — humanity is confined within a circle of Popilius from which there is no escape, condemned to vegetate upon this globe, never able to venture into interplanetary space! That's not so! We are going to the moon, we shall go to the planets, we shall travel to the stars just as today we go from Liverpool to New York, easily, rapidly, surely, and the oceans of space will be crossed like the seas of the moon.
- Tr. Walter James Miller (1978)
- In spite of the opinions of certain narrow-minded people, who would shut up the human race upon this globe, as within some magic circle which it must never outstep, we shall one day travel to the moon, the planets, and the stars, with the same facility, rapidity, and certainty as we now make the voyage from Liverpool to New York!
Vingt mille lieues sous les mers. French text here. English text here.
- L'esprit humain se plaît à ces conceptions grandioses d'êtres surnaturels. Or la mer est précisément leur meilleur véhicule, le seul milieu où ces géants près desquels les animaux terrestres, éléphants ou rhinocéros, ne sont que des nains — puissent se produire et se développer.
- 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
- Part I, ch. II: Pro and Con
- 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
- Qui dit Canadien, dit Français.
- Whoever calls himself Canadian calls himself French.
- Part I, ch. IV: Ned Land
- Whoever calls himself Canadian calls himself French.
Cet enlèvement, si brutalement exécuté, s'était accompli avec la rapidité de l'éclair... Un rapide frisson me glaça l'épiderme. A qui avions-nous affaire ? Sans doute à quelques pirates d'une nouvelle espèce qui exploitaient la mer à leur façon.'
A peine l'étroit panneau fut-il refermé sur moi, qu'une obscurité profonde m'enveloppa.
- This forcible abduction, so roughly carried out, was accomplished with the rapidity of lightning. I shivered all over. Whom had we to deal with? No doubt some new sort of pirates, who explored the sea in their own way. Hardly had the narrow panel closed upon me, when I was enveloped in darkness.
- Part I, ch. VIII: Mobilis in Mobili
- This forcible abduction, so roughly carried out, was accomplished with the rapidity of lightning. I shivered all over. Whom had we to deal with? No doubt some new sort of pirates, who explored the sea in their own way. Hardly had the narrow panel closed upon me, when I was enveloped in darkness.
- Nous étions seuls. Où ? Je ne pouvais le dire, à peine l'imaginer. Tout était noir, mais d'un noir si absolu, qu'après quelques minutes, mes yeux n'avaient encore pu saisir une de ces lueurs indéterminées qui flottent dans les plus profondes nuits.
- 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.
- Part I, ch. VIII: Mobilis in Mobili
- 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.
- A quoi bon discuter une proposition semblable, quand la force peut détruire les meilleurs arguments.
- What good would it be to discuss such a proposition, when force could destroy the best arguments?
- Part I, ch. X: The Man of the Seas
- What good would it be to discuss such a proposition, when force could destroy the best arguments?
- La mer est tout! Elle couvre les sept dixièmes du globe terrestre. Son souffle est pur et sain. C'est l'immense désert où l'homme n'est jamais seul, car il sent frémir la vie à ses côtés. La mer n'est que le véhicule d'une surnaturelle et prodigieuse existence; elle n'est que mouvement et amour.
- The sea is everything. It covers seven tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides. The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence. It is nothing but love and emotion.
- Part I, ch. X: The Man of the Seas
- The sea is everything. It covers seven tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides. The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence. It is nothing but love and emotion.
- Les différences chronologiques s'effacent dans la mémoire des morts.
- In the memory of the dead all chronological differences are effaced.
- Part I, ch. X: The Man of the Seas (Part I, ch. XI in the French text)
- In the memory of the dead all chronological differences are effaced.
- Ce ne sont pas de nouveaux continents qu'il faut à la terre, mais de nouveaux hommes!
- The Earth does not want new continents, but new men.
- Part I, ch. XVIII: Vanikoro (Boston: Geo. M. Smith & Co., 1873, p. 101) (Ch. XIX in the French text)
- Variant: The planet doesn't need new continents, it needs new men.
- Tr. Walter James Miller (1966)
- The Earth does not want new continents, but new men.
- Le Nautilus en brisait les eaux sous le tranchant de son éperon, après avoir accompli près de dix mille lieues en trois mois et demi, parcours supérieur à l'un des grands cercles de la terre. Où allions-nous maintenant, et que nous réservait l'avenir?
- The Nautilus was piercing the water with its sharp spur, after having accomplished nearly ten thousand leagues in three months and a half, a distance greater than the great circle of the earth. Where were we going now, and what was reserved for the future?
- Part II, ch. VIII: Vigo Bay
- The Nautilus was piercing the water with its sharp spur, after having accomplished nearly ten thousand leagues in three months and a half, a distance greater than the great circle of the earth. Where were we going now, and what was reserved for the future?
- La liberté vaut qu’on la paye.
- Freedom is worth paying for.
- Part II, ch. VIII: Vigo Bay
- Freedom is worth paying for.
- On ne saurait empêcher l'équilibre de produire ses effets. On peut braver les lois humaines, mais non résister aux lois naturelles.
- We cannot prevent equilibrium from producing its effects. We may brave human laws, but we cannot resist natural ones.
- Part II, ch. XV: Accident or Incident?
- We cannot prevent equilibrium from producing its effects. We may brave human laws, but we cannot resist natural ones.
- Voici la conclusion de ce voyage sous les mers. Ce qui se passa pendant cette nuit, comment le canot échappa au formidable remous du Maelstrom, comment Ned Land, Conseil et moi, nous sortîmes du gouffre, je ne saurai le dire.
- Thus ends the voyage under the seas. What passed during that night — how the boat escaped from the eddies of the maelstrom — how Ned Land, Conseil, and myself ever came out of the gulf, I cannot tell.
- Part II, ch. XXIII: Conclusion
- Thus ends the voyage under the seas. What passed during that night — how the boat escaped from the eddies of the maelstrom — how Ned Land, Conseil, and myself ever came out of the gulf, I cannot tell.
Le pays des fourrures. Trans. N. D'Anvers. English text here. French text here.
- Hobson constata, non sans une certaine appréhension, que les ours étaient nombreux sur cette partie du territoire. Il était rare, en effet, qu'un jour se passât sans qu'un couple de ces formidables carnassiers ne fût signalé. Bien des coups de fusil furent adressés à ces terribles visiteurs. Tantôt, c'était une bande de ces ours bruns qui sont fort communs sur toute la région de la Terre-Maudite, tantôt, une de ces familles d'ours polaires d'une taille gigantesque, que les premiers froids amèneraient sans doute en plus grand nombre aux environs du cap Bathurst. Et, en effet, dans les récits d'hivernage, on peut observer que les explorateurs ou les baleiniers sont plusieurs fois par jour exposés à la rencontre de ces carnassiers.
- Hobson perceived with some alarm that bears were very numerous in the neighbourhood and that scarcely a day passed without one or more of them being sighted. Sometimes these unwelcome visitors belonged to the family of brown bears, so common throughout the whole "Cursed Land"; but now and then a solitary specimen of the formidable Polar bear warned the hunters what dangers they might have to encounter as soon as the first frost should drive great numbers of these fearful animals to the neighborhood of Cape Bathurst. Every book of Arctic explorations is full of accounts of the frequent perils in which travelers and whalers are exposed from the ferocity of these animals.
- Ch. 14: Some Excursions
- Hobson perceived with some alarm that bears were very numerous in the neighbourhood and that scarcely a day passed without one or more of them being sighted. Sometimes these unwelcome visitors belonged to the family of brown bears, so common throughout the whole "Cursed Land"; but now and then a solitary specimen of the formidable Polar bear warned the hunters what dangers they might have to encounter as soon as the first frost should drive great numbers of these fearful animals to the neighborhood of Cape Bathurst. Every book of Arctic explorations is full of accounts of the frequent perils in which travelers and whalers are exposed from the ferocity of these animals.
Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours. French text here. English text here.
- Quant à voir la ville, il n'y pensait même pas, étant de cette race d'Anglais qui font visiter par leur domestique les pays qu'ils traversent.
- As for seeing the town, he did not even think of it, being of that breed of Britons who have their servants do their sightseeing for them.
- Ch. VII: Which once more shows the futility of passports for police purposes. Tr. William Butcher (1995)
- As for seeing the town, he did not even think of it, being of that breed of Britons who have their servants do their sightseeing for them.
Personne n'ignore que l'Inde — ce grand triangle renversé dont la base est au nord et la pointe au sud — comprend une superficie de quatorze cent mille milles carrés, sur laquelle est inégalement répandue une population de cent quatre-vingts millions d'habitants. Le gouvernement britannique exerce une domination réelle sur une certaine partie de cet immense pays. Il entretient un gouverneur général à Calcutta, des gouverneurs à Madras, à Bombay, au Bengale, et un lieutenant-gouverneur à Agra.
Mais l'Inde anglaise proprement dite ne compte qu'une superficie de sept cent mille milles carrés et une population de cent à cent dix millions d'habitants. C'est assez dire qu'une notable partie du territoire échappe encore à l'autorité de la reine; et, en effet, chez certains rajahs de l'intérieur, farouches et terribles, l'indépendance indoue est encore absolue.
Everybody knows that the great reversed triangle of land, with its base in the north and its apex in the south, which is called India, embraces fourteen hundred thousand square miles, upon which is spread unequally a population of one hundred and eighty millions of souls. The British Crown exercises a real and despotic dominion over the larger portion of this vast country, and has a governor-general stationed at Calcutta, governors at Madras, Bombay, and in Bengal, and a lieutenant-governor at Agra.
But British India, properly so called, only embraces seven hundred thousand square miles, and a population of from one hundred to one hundred and ten millions of inhabitants. A considerable portion of India is still free from British authority; and there are certain ferocious rajahs in the interior who are absolutely independent.
- Ch. X: In Which Passepartout Is Only Too Glad to Get Off with the Loss of His Shoes
- Qu'un Anglais comme lui fît le tour du monde un sac à la main, passe encore; mais une femme ne pouvait entreprendre une pareille traversée dans ces conditions.
- It was all very well for an Englishman like Mr. Fogg to make the tour of the world with a carpet-bag; a lady could not be expected to travel comfortably under such conditions.
- Ch. XX: In Which Fix Comes Face to Face with Phileas Fogg
- It was all very well for an Englishman like Mr. Fogg to make the tour of the world with a carpet-bag; a lady could not be expected to travel comfortably under such conditions.
Phileas Fogg avait gagné son pari. Il avait accompli en quatre-vingts jours ce voyage autour du monde ! Il avait employé pour ce faire tous les moyens de transport, paquebots, railways, voitures, yachts, bâtiments de commerce, traîneaux, éléphant. L'excentrique gentleman avait déployé dans cette affaire ses merveilleuses qualités de sang-froid et d'exactitude. Mais après ? Qu'avait-il gagné à ce déplacement ? Qu'avait-il rapporté de ce voyage ?
Rien, dira-t-on ? Rien, soit, si ce n'est une charmante femme, qui — quelque invraisemblable que cela puisse paraître — le rendit le plus heureux des hommes !
En vérité, ne ferait-on pas, pour moins que cela, le Tour du Monde ?
Phileas Fogg had won his wager, and had made his journey around the world in eighty days. To do this he had employed every means of conveyance — steamers, railways, carriages, yachts, trading-vessels, sledges, elephants. The eccentric gentleman had throughout displayed all his marvellous qualities of coolness and exactitude. But what then? What had he really gained by all this trouble? What had he brought back from this long and weary journey?
Nothing, say you? 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?
- Ch. XXXVII: In Which It Is Shown that Phileas Fogg Gained Nothing by His Tour Around the World, Unless It Were Happiness
The Mysterious Island (1874)
editL’Île mystérieuse. French text here. English text here.
- Mieux vaut mettre les choses au pis tout de suite, répondit l’ingénieur, et ne se réserver que la surprise du mieux.
- "Better to put things at the worst at first," replied the engineer, "and reserve the best for a surprise."
- Part I, ch. IX
- "Better to put things at the worst at first," replied the engineer, "and reserve the best for a surprise."
- La nécessité est, d’ailleurs, de tous les maîtres, celui qu’on écoute le plus et qui enseigne le mieux.
- Before all masters, necessity is the one most listened to, and who teaches the best.
- Part I, ch. XVII
- Before all masters, necessity is the one most listened to, and who teaches the best.
- L’homme qui "sait" réussit là où d’autres végéteraient et périraient inévitablement.
- An energetic man will succeed where an indolent one would vegetate and inevitably perish.
- Part I, ch. XIX
- An energetic man will succeed where an indolent one would vegetate and inevitably perish.
- L’homme n’est jamais ni parfait, ni content.
- Man is never perfect, nor contented.
- Part I, ch. XXII
- Man is never perfect, nor contented.
- Yes, but water decomposed into its primitive elements... and decomposed doubtless, by electricity, which will then have become a powerful and manageable force, for all great discoveries, by some inexplicable law, appear to agree and become complete at the same time. Yes, my friends, 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. Some day the coalrooms of steamers and the tenders of locomotives will, instead of coal, be stored with these two condensed gases, which will burn in the furnaces with enormous calorific power. There is, therefore, nothing to fear. As long as the earth is inhabited it will supply the wants of its inhabitants, and there will be no want of either light or heat as long as the productions of the vegetable, mineral or animal kingdoms do not fail us. I believe, then, that when the deposits of coal are exhausted we shall heat and warm ourselves with water. Water will be the coal of the future!
- Part II, ch. XI
- Malheur à qui est seul, mes amis, et il faut croire que l’isolement a vite fait de détruire la raison.
- It is a great misfortune to be alone, my friends; and it must be believed that solitude can quickly destroy reason.
- Part II, ch. XV
- It is a great misfortune to be alone, my friends; and it must be believed that solitude can quickly destroy reason.
Les hommes, Pencroff, si savants qu’ils puissent être, ne pourront jamais changer quoi que ce soit à l’ordre cosmographique établi par Dieu même.
— Et pourtant, ajouta Pencroff, qui montra une certaine difficulté à se résigner, le monde est bien savant! Quel gros livre, monsieur Cyrus, on ferait avec tout ce qu’on sait!
— Et quel plus gros livre encore avec tout ce qu’on ne sait pas, répondit Cyrus Smith.
"Men, Pencroft, however learned they may be, can never change anything of the cosmographical order established by God Himself."
"And yet," added Pencroft, "the world is very learned. 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!" answered Harding.
- Part III, ch. XIV
- Ainsi est-il du cœur de l’homme. Le besoin de faire œuvre qui dure, qui lui survive, est le signe de sa supériorité sur tout ce qui vit ici-bas. C’est ce qui a fondé sa domination, et c’est ce qui la justifie dans le monde entier.
- 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.
- Part III, ch. XV
- 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.
- La civilisation ne recule jamais, et il semble qu’elle emprunte tous les droits à la nécessité.
- Civilization never recedes; the law of necessity ever forces it onwards.
- Part III, ch. XVI
- Civilization never recedes; the law of necessity ever forces it onwards.
- Celui qui se trompe dans une intention qu’il croit bonne, on peut le combattre, on ne cesse pas de l’estimer.
- He who is mistaken in an action which he sincerely believes to be right may be an enemy, but retains our esteem.
- Part III, ch. XVI
- He who is mistaken in an action which he sincerely believes to be right may be an enemy, but retains our esteem.
Le Chancellor. Trans. Ellen Frewer. French text here. English text here.
- Les poëtes sont comme les proverbes : l’un est toujours là pour contredire l’autre.
- Poets are like proverbs: you can always find one to contradict another.
- Ch. 5: An Unusual Route
- Poets are like proverbs: you can always find one to contradict another.
Misattributed
edit- I would have bartered a diamond mine for a glass of pure spring water!
- Journey to the Centre of the Earth (Griffith and Farran, 1871), Ch. XVII: Vertical descent
- This sentence, like many others in the Griffin and Farran translation of the book, has no source in the original French text.
- Journey to the Centre of the Earth (Griffith and Farran, 1871), Ch. XVII: Vertical descent
Quotes about Jules Verne
edit- (What books did you read as a child?) I read Emilio Salgari, Jules Verne, Charles Dickens, and all the detective novels I could lay my hands on.
- Isabel Allende, Interviews with Latin American writers by Marie Lise Gazarian Gautier (1989)
- In a very real sense, Jules Verne is one of the pioneers of the space age.
- Frank Borman, quoted in "French Cheer Frank Borman", Daytona Beach Morning Journal (6 February 1969), p. 37, retrieved 30 March 2013
- It was Jules Verne who launched me on this trip.
- Richard E. Byrd, quoted in James E. Gunn, Inside Science Fiction (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2006), p. 210, retrieved 26 August 2013
- Almost as influential as my natural penchant was a marvelous book, which impressed and fascinated me more than any other—Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. I have re-read it many times, and I confess I sometimes re-read it still, each time finding anew the joys and enthusiasm of my childhood.
- Norbert Castaret, Ten Years Under the Earth (New York: Greystone Press, 1938), p. xiv
- All my texts were written, directly or allusively, to celebrate (Captain Hatteras's) discovery of the North Pole.
- Eugène Ionesco, quoted in William Butcher, "Preface", in Jules Verne, The Adventures of Captain Hatteras (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), retrieved 30 March 2013
- Jules Verne was in a sense the director-general of my life. When I was not more than ten or eleven years old I read his Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea and my young imagination was fired. This generation may have forgotten that Verne was a great scientist as well as the writer of the most romantic fiction of his day.
- Simon Lake, Submarine: The Autobiography of Simon Lake (New York: Appleton-Century, 1930), p. 10.
- For twenty years, the people who move forward have been doing a Jules Verne.
- Hubert Lyautey, quoted in Jean-Michel Margot, "Editorial", Verniana 4: v–viii (2012), retrieved 2 March 2013
- We found a text in a translation of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea that mentioned Villeroi as the math teacher to Jules Verne. They were from the same city.
- Catherine Marzin in USS Alligator's Mysterious Designer” by Nell Grennfield Boyce, NPR, (September 16, 2005).
- I would also like, in these notes, to pay homage to that man of incommensurable genius, namely Jules Verne.
My admiration for him is boundless.
In certain pages of Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Five Weeks in a Balloon, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, From the Earth to the Moon, Around the Moon, The Mysterious Island and Hector Servadac, he raised himself to the highest peaks that can be attained by human language. [...]
O incomparable master, may you be blessed for the sublime hours which I have spent endlessly reading and rereading your works through my life. - Je voudrais aussi, dans ces notes, rendre hommage à l’homme d’incommensurable génie que fut Jules Verne.
Mon admiration pour lui est infinie.
Dans certaines pages du Voyage au centre de la terre, de Cinq Semaines en ballon, de Vingt mille lieues sous les mers, de De la Terre à la Lune et de Autour de la Lune, de l’Île mystérieuse, d’Hector Servadac, il s’est élevé aux plus hautes cimes que puisse atteindre le verbe humain. [...]
Ô maître incomparable, soyez béni pour les heures sublimes que j’ai passées toute ma vie à vous lire et à vous relire sans cesse.- Raymond Roussel, Comment j’ai écrit certains de mes livres (1935), quoted (in French and English translation) in Terry Hale and Andrew Hugill, "The Science is Fiction: Jules Verne, Raymond Roussel, and Surrealism", in Edmund J. Smyth, Jules Verne: Narratives of Modernity (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000), pp. 122–123. The supplied English translation, though otherwise accurate, has several typos and errors in the list of Verne's works, corrected here by referring to the French version.
- With the vast sweep of his imagination Jules Verne created a whole world of magical things imbued with a delightful naiveté, which just charm us...
- Veliká fantazie Julesa Vernea vytvořila svět, kouzelný svět plný rozkošné naivity, která je tolik půvabná...
- Karel Zeman, quoted on the website of the Karel Zeman Museum in Prague (in English and Czech).
- With the vast sweep of his imagination Jules Verne created a whole world of magical things imbued with a delightful naiveté, which just charm us...
- Veliká fantazie Julesa Vernea vytvořila svět, kouzelný svět plný rozkošné naivity, která je tolik půvabná...
- Karel Zemanas quoted on the website of the Karel Zeman Museum in Prague (in English and Czech).
- Veliká fantazie Julesa Vernea vytvořila svět, kouzelný svět plný rozkošné naivity, která je tolik půvabná...
