Quotes from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“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. ”
― Jules Verne, quote from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“We may brave human laws, but we cannot resist natural ones.”
― Jules Verne, quote from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“If there were no thunder, men would have little fear of lightning.”
― Jules Verne, quote from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“The human mind delights in grand conceptions of supernatural beings.”
― Jules Verne, quote from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“Aures habent et non audient` - `They have ears but hear not”
― Jules Verne, quote from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“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.”
― Jules Verne, quote from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“The earth does not want new continents, but new men.”
― Jules Verne, quote from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“Nature's creative power is far beyond man's instinct of destruction.”
― Jules Verne, quote from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“Steam seems to have killed all gratitude in the hearts of sailors.”
― Jules Verne, quote from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“Your dead sleep quietly, at least, Captain, out of reach of sharks" "Yes, sir, of sharks and men.”
― Jules Verne, quote from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“If his destiny be strange, it is also sublime.”
― Jules Verne, quote from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“What use are the best of arguments when they can be destroyed by force?”
― Jules Verne, quote from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“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.”
― Jules Verne, quote from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“No sir, it is evidently a gigantic narwhal”
― Jules Verne, quote from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“Oh, figures!' answered Ned. 'You can make figures do whatever you want.”
― Jules Verne, quote from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“It was obvious that the matter had to be settled, and evasions were distasteful to me.”
― Jules Verne, quote from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“However, everything has an end, everything passes away, even the hunger of people who have not eaten”
― Jules Verne, quote from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“Perfume is the soul of the flower, and sea-flowers have no soul.”
― Jules Verne, quote from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“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?”
― Jules Verne, quote from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“I ask no more than to live a hundred years longer, that I may have more time to dwell the longer on your memory.”
― Jules Verne, quote from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“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!”
― Jules Verne, quote from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“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.”
― Jules Verne, quote from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“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.”
― Jules Verne, quote from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“God, if he believed in Him, and his conscience, if he had one, were the only judges to whom he was answerable.”
― Jules Verne, quote from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“There is the disadvantage of not knowing all languages," said Conseil, "or the disadvantage of not having one universal language.”
― Jules Verne, quote from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“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!”
― Jules Verne, quote from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“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 !”
― Jules Verne, quote from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“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.”
― Jules Verne, quote from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

About the author

Popular quotes

“We long for things that harm us and run from the things that grow and heal us. We think good is bad and bad is good.”
― Tessa Afshar, quote from Pearl in the Sand

“It was in that moment I remembered that while I may have been a quarter Canadian, my mother was twice the Canadian I was, so her tolerance for bullshit on the ice was even lower than mine. I both feared and admired her for that.”
― Dave Hill, quote from Tasteful Nudes and Other Misguided Attempts at Personal Growth and Validation

“He sang “I wish I weren’t me” over and over again just flat of the key of love until he forgot the words and could only hum along. Everyday was the same. The same stupid smile on the same stupid boy. Until the days blurred into a haze and the boy dropped into a depression. Not a cool dark room and cigarette depression like the songs he loved, but one that felt like he was being smothered by a safe, suburban, monotonous blanket. Everything felt like a headache to the boy. Every face, every stupid stuttered sentence all wrapped up into the biggest headache ever. So the boy took an aspirin. And another and another and then went to sleep, lullabyed by hopes he would never wake up to.”
― Pete Wentz, quote from The Boy With The Thorn In His Side

“Where do they come from, thoughts?
Like wrens, out of the sky.
They arrive.
Noisy, hungry, perfectly themselves.”
― Peter Behrens, quote from The Law of Dreams

“That's the thing about being a victim; you start to think it'll happen to you on a regular basis. It's living with the reality of your own vulnerability, and it sucks.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from Un dernier verre avant la guerre

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.