Jules Verne · 394 pages
Rating: (158.4K votes)
“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; it is the Living Infinite. ”
“We may brave human laws, but we cannot resist natural ones.”
“If there were no thunder, men would have little fear of lightning.”
“The human mind delights in grand conceptions of supernatural beings.”
“Aures habent et non audient` - `They have ears but hear not”
“The sea is everything. It covers seven-tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and life-giving. It is an immense desert place where man is never lonely, for he senses the weaving of Creation on every hand. It is the physical embodiment of a supernatural existence... For the sea is itself nothing but love and emotion. It is the Living Infinite, as one of your poets has said. Nature manifests herself in it, with her three kingdoms: mineral, vegetable, and animal. The ocean is the vast reservoir of Nature.”
“The earth does not want new continents, but new men.”
“Nature's creative power is far beyond man's instinct of destruction.”
“Steam seems to have killed all gratitude in the hearts of sailors.”
“Your dead sleep quietly, at least, Captain, out of reach of sharks" "Yes, sir, of sharks and men.”
“If his destiny be strange, it is also sublime.”
“What use are the best of arguments when they can be destroyed by force?”
“The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence. It is nothing but love and emotion; it is the 'Living Infinite'...The globe began with sea, so to speak; and who knows if it will not end with it? In it is supreme tranquility.”
“No sir, it is evidently a gigantic narwhal”
“Oh, figures!' answered Ned. 'You can make figures do whatever you want.”
“It was obvious that the matter had to be settled, and evasions were distasteful to me.”
“However, everything has an end, everything passes away, even the hunger of people who have not eaten”
“Perfume is the soul of the flower, and sea-flowers have no soul.”
“With its untold depths, couldn't the sea keep alive such huge specimens of life from another age, this sea that never changes while the land masses undergo almost continuous alteration? Couldn't the heart of the ocean hide the last–remaining varieties of these titanic species, for whom years are centuries and centuries millennia?”
“I ask no more than to live a hundred years longer, that I may have more time to dwell the longer on your memory.”
“I am not what you call a civilised man! I have done with society entirely, for reasons which I alone have the right of appreciating. I do not, therefore, obey its laws, and I desire you never to allude to them before me again!”
“Captain Nemo pointed to this prodigious heap of shellfish, and I saw that these mines were genuinely inexhaustible, since nature's creative powers are greater than man's destructive instincts.”
“Conseil: If that is the case, this dugong may well be the last of its race, and perhaps it would be better to spare it, in the interest of science.
Ned Land: Perhaps it will be better to hunt it, in the interest of the kitchen.”
“God, if he believed in Him, and his conscience, if he had one, were the only judges to whom he was answerable.”
“There is the disadvantage of not knowing all languages," said Conseil, "or the disadvantage of not having one universal language.”
“It was marvellous, a feast for the eyes, this complication of coloured tints, a perfect kaleidoscope of green, yellow, orange, violet, indigo, and blue; in one word, the whole palette of an enthusiastic colourist!”
“Adieu, soleil ! s'écria-t-il. Disparais, astre radieux ! Couche-toi sous cette mer libre, et laisse une nuit de six mois étendre ses ombres sur mon nouveau domaine !”
“Sir," replied the commander, "I am nothing to you but Captain Nemo; and you and your companions are nothing to me but the passengers of the Nautilus.”
“Okay, I think it's time for another distraction" Eight says, disappearing again. He reappears by the outer circle of stones, plants his hands on an upright slab, and pushes hard. All I can do is watch in horror, frozen to the spot. The huge stone wobbles and slowly tips backwards, then the horizontal slab on top falls too, and that's when Eight starts yelling, "Help! Help! The stones are falling over! Stonehenge is falling down!" I will kill him. I clench my fists at my side, which is when I realize I still have a small rock in my hand. I lean down and carefully, pointlessly, return it to its spot.”
“Insofar as she recognized at all that she was dreaming, she realized that she must be exploring her subconscious mind. She had heard it said that humans are supposed only to use about a tenth of their brains, and that no one was really clear what the other nine tenths were for, but she had certainly never heard it suggested that they were used for storing penguins.”
“Brassa,' she whispered, 'what is the moon? Why does it grow in the sky?'
'Because the moon is the goddess Tor,' answered Brassa softly, smiling down at Larka, 'looking down on us all. As some say the fury of the sun is the hunter Fenris snarling at the Varg, so they say the moon is the wolf goddess, opening her eyes wider and wider and stroking the world with her kindness.”
“In a word, to comport oneself with perfect propriety in Polygonal society, one ought to be a Polygon oneself. Such at least is the painful teaching of my experience.”
“النية الحسنة لاتكفي....
إن الوقوع في الحب شيء سحري دائماً....تشعر كأنه أبدي وكأنه سيدوم لأبد...إننا نعتقد بسذاجة أننا مستثنون من المشكلات التي واجهها آبائنا وأمهاتنا
ولايوجد لدينا احتما بأن الحب قد يموت ومطمئنون إلى أنه وجد ليبقى وأنه مقدر لنا أن نعيش سعداء إلى الأبد ...!!! ولكن السحر يتقهقر وتكون الغلبة للحياة اليومية..!!!
ويظهر للعيان أن الرجال يتوقعون من النساء أن يفكرن وأن تكون ردود أفعالهن مثل الرجال والنساء يتوقعن أن يشعر الرجال ويتصرفنون مثل النساء ودون وعي صريح باختلافاتنا فنحن لا نأخذ الوقت الكافي لنفهم ونحترم بعضنا البعض...ونصبح كثيري المطالب قاسين ومستائين ونصدر الأحكام وغير قادرين على التحمل.
ومع أفضل وأعظم نوايا الحب يظل الحب يموت...بطريقة ما تتسلل المشكلات...يتراكم الاستياء...تتعطل الاتصالات...وتزداد عدم الثقة...وينتج الجفاء والكبت ويضيع سحر الحب”
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