Top 200 Jules Verne Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “If providence has created the stars and the planets, Man has called the cannon-ball into existence.”

— Jules Verne

202. “These suckling-pigs were really delicious, and Pencroft was devouring his share with great gusto, when all at once a cry and an oath escaped him. “What’s the matter?” asked Cyrus Harding. “The matter? the matter is that I have just broken a tooth!” replied the sailor. “What, are there pebbles in your peccaries?” said Gideon Spilett. “I suppose so,” replied Pencroft, drawing from his lips the object which had cost him a grinder! – It was not a pebble – it was a leaden bullet.”

— Jules Verne

203. “One of my objectives is learning more than is absolutely necessary.”

— Jules Verne

204. “And in it all, where did the truth end and error begin?”

— Jules Verne

205. “When I saw myself thus wholly cut off from human succour, incapable of attempting anything for my deliverance, I thought of heavenly succour. Memories of my childhood, of my mother... came back to me. I began to pray, little as I deserved that God should know me when I had forgotten Him so long; and I prayed fervently.”

— Jules Verne

206. “I am induced to think,” said Pencroft, “that this man was not wrecked on Tabor Island, but that in consequence of some crime he was left there.”

— Jules Verne

207. “These are just some arms in the service of a head. Is not this the true organization of the force?”

— Jules Verne

208. “Thus were formed those immense coalfields, which nevertheless, are not inexhaustible, and which three centuries at the present accelerated rate of consumption will exhaust unless the industrial world will devise a remedy.”

— Jules Verne

209. “Savages!′ he echoed, ironically. ‘You set foot on one of the shores of this globe, professor, and you’re surprised to find savages? Where aren’t there savages? Besides, are they any worse than others, these whom you call savages?”

— Jules Verne

210. “It is never worth while to do anything by halves.”

— Jules Verne

211. “Learned, clear-headed, and practical, he fulfilled in all emergencies those three conditions which united ought to insure human success – activity of mind and body, impetuous wishes, and powerful will. He might have taken for his motto that of William of Orange in the 17th century: “I can undertake and persevere even without hope of success.”

— Jules Verne

212. “Your arguments at rotten at the foundation. You speak in the future, ′ We shall be there! We shall be here!′ I speak in the present,’We are here, and we must profit by it.”

— Jules Verne

213. “I went back to reading Sirr’s book, but I leafed through it mechanically. Between the lines I kept seeing fearsome, wide–open jaws.”

— Jules Verne

214. “From the same cause, the idea of a floating hull of an enormous wreck was given up.”

— Jules Verne

215. “Now, if the question were to destroy a lion, a tiger, a cat, a hyena, I could understand it; but to deprive an antelope or a gazelle of life, to no other purpose than the gratification of your instincts as a sportsman, seems hardly worth the trouble.”

— Jules Verne

216. “Poh! doctor, one has only just to follow things along as they happen, and he can always work his way out of a scrape! The safest plan, you see, is to take matters as they come.”

— Jules Verne

217. “My uncle wasted a great deal of breath in giving him directions, but worthy Hans took not the slightest notice of his words.”

— Jules Verne

218. “The game was in his eyes a contest, a struggle with a difficulty, yet a motionless, unwearying struggle, congenial to his tastes.”

— Jules Verne

219. “Indian dancing-girls, clothed in rose-coloured gauze, looped up with gold and silver, danced airily, but with perfect modesty, to the sound of viols and the clanging of tambourines.”

— Jules Verne

220. “Ben Zoof, whose ideas of discipline were extremely rigid, at once suggested that the colony should be put under the surveillance of the police, that the cardinal points should be placed under restraint, and that the sun should be shot for breach of discipline.”

— Jules Verne

221. “If savages had the ways of gentlemen, where would be the difference?”

— Jules Verne

222. “If some volcano in the Alleghanies threatens North Carolina with a disaster similar to that of Martinique, buried beneath the outpourings of Mont Pelee, then these people must leave their homes.”

— Jules Verne

223. “It is not our duty to explain facts, but to make the best possible use of them.”

— Jules Verne

224. “Though, by a just turn-about of things here below, Great Britain has become a colony of the United States, the English are not yet reconciled to the situation.”

— Jules Verne

225. “What one man can imagine, another will someday be able to achieve.”

— Jules Verne

226. “The latter, without a word, made a rush for him, grasped him by the throat, and, much to the amusement of a group of Americans, who immediately began to bet on him, administered to the detective a perfect volley of blows, which proved the great superiority of French over English pugilistic skill.”

— Jules Verne

227. “Science, great, mighty and in the end unerring, science has fallen into many errors – errors which have been fortunate and useful rather than otherwise, for they have been the steppingstones to truth.”

— Jules Verne

228. “If we may die at any moment, we may also be saved at any moment. So let us be prepared to seize the slightest opportunity.”

— Jules Verne

229. “Our principle is, that books, instead of growing mouldy behind an iron grating, should be worn out under the eyes of many readers.”

— Jules Verne

230. “As soon as the robbery was discovered, picked detectives hastened off to Liverpool, Glasgow, Havre, Suez, Brindisi, New York, and other ports, inspired by the proffered reward of two thousand pounds, and five per cent.”

— Jules Verne

231. “So, fatality will play me these terrible tricks. The elements themselves conspire to overwhelm me with mortification. Air, fire, and water combine their united efforts to oppose my passage. Well, they shall see what the earnest will of a determined man can do. I will not yield, I will not retreat even one inch; and we shall see who shall triumph in this great contest – man or nature.”

— Jules Verne

232. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised; but I will not be eaten without protest!”

— Jules Verne

233. “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.”

— Jules Verne

234. “Je crains donc bien qu’il ne soit difficile d’y entrer, ayant vent et mer contre nous.”

— Jules Verne

235. “When the heart and the reason are struggling, it is generally the heart that wins the mastery.”

— Jules Verne

236. “What delicious walks.”

— Jules Verne

237. “As for Dr. Custos, he was an honorable practitioner who, following the example of his colleagues, cured his patients of all their diseases, except the one they died from: a disagreeable habit that has been picked up, unfortunately, by all the members of the medical profession, whichever country they practice in.”

— Jules Verne

238. “In Conseil I had a seasoned specialist in biological classification, an enthusiast who could run with acrobatic agility up and down the whole ladder of branches, groups, classes, subclasses, orders, families, genera, subgenera, species, and varieties. But there his science came to a halt. Classifying was everything to him, so he knew nothing else.”

— Jules Verne