xy

@xy, member from Sept. 25, 2023

Favourite quotes (21448)

“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.”

Jules Verne book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

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.
Part I, ch. VIII: Mobilis in Mobili
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870)

“Civilization never recedes; the law of necessity ever forces it onwards.”

Jules Verne book The Mysterious Island

La civilisation ne recule jamais, et il semble qu’elle emprunte tous les droits à la nécessité.
Part III, ch. XVI
The Mysterious Island (1874)

“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”

Jules Verne book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

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.
Part I, ch. II: Pro and Con
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870)

“What good would it be to discuss such a proposition, when force could destroy the best arguments?”

Jules Verne book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

A quoi bon discuter une proposition semblable, quand la force peut détruire les meilleurs arguments.
Part I, ch. X: The Man of the Seas
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870)

“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.”

Jules Verne book A Journey to the Center of the Earth

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.
Source: Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Ch. XLII in the French text, Tr. William Butcher (1992)

“I would have bartered a diamond mine for a glass of pure spring water!”

Jules Verne (1828–1905) French novelist, poet and playwright

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.
Misattributed

“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.”

Jules Verne book From the Earth to the Moon

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.
Source: From the Earth to the Moon (1865), Ch. I: The Gun Club

“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.”

Jules Verne book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

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.
Part II, ch. XXIII: Conclusion
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870)

“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.”

Jules Verne book A Journey to the Center of the Earth

These sentences, from an early translation of the book (Griffith and Farran, 1871), have no source in the original French text.
Source: Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Ch. XLI: The great explosion and the rush down below

“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.”

Jules Verne book The Fur Country

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.
Source: The Fur Country, or Seventy Degrees North Latitude (1872), Ch. 14: Some Excursions

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

Jules Verne book The Mysterious Island

Malheur à qui est seul, mes amis, et il faut croire que l’isolement a vite fait de détruire la raison.
Part II, ch. XV
The Mysterious Island (1874)

“Freedom is worth paying for.”

Jules Verne book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

La liberté vaut qu’on la paye.
Part II, ch. VIII: Vigo Bay
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870)

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

Jules Verne book The Mysterious Island

Celui qui se trompe dans une intention qu’il croit bonne, on peut le combattre, on ne cesse pas de l’estimer.
Part III, ch. XVI
The Mysterious Island (1874)

“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.”

Jules Verne book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

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.
Part I, ch. X: The Man of the Seas
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870)

“We cannot prevent equilibrium from producing its effects. We may brave human laws, but we cannot resist natural ones.”

Jules Verne book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

On ne saurait empêcher l'équilibre de produire ses effets. On peut braver les lois humaines, mais non résister aux lois naturelles.
Part II, ch. XV: Accident or Incident?
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870)

“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.”

Jules Verne book Around the World in Eighty Days

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.
Source: Around the World in Eighty Days (1873), Ch. XX: In Which Fix Comes Face to Face with Phileas Fogg

“Better to put things at the worst at first, and reserve the best for a surprise.”

Jules Verne book The Mysterious Island

Mieux vaut mettre les choses au pis tout de suite, répondit l’ingénieur, et ne se réserver que la surprise du mieux.
Part I, ch. IX
The Mysterious Island (1874)
Context: Better to put things at the worst at first," replied the engineer, "and reserve the best for a surprise.

“All art is immoral.”

Oscar Wilde book Intentions

Intentions (1891)

“One can survive everything nowadays except death.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

" Oscariana http://books.google.com/books?id=2otbAAAAMAAJ&q=&quot;One+can+survive+everything+nowadays+except+death&quot;&pg=PA65#v=onepage" (1907)

“In the old days men had the rack. Now they have the Press. That is an Improvement certainly. but still it is very bad, and wrong, and demoralising. Somebody - was it Burke?”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

called journalism the fourth estate. That was true at the time, no doubt. But at the present moment it really is the only estate. It has eaten up the other three. The Lords Temporal say nothing, The Lords Spiritual have nothing to say and the House of Commons has nothing to say and says it. We are dominated by journalism. <br class="br">The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891) <br class="br">Source: Wilde, Oscar, (1891 / 1912) The Soul of Man Under Socialism, London, Arthur L. Humphreys. Retrieved from University of California Libraries Archive.org https://archive.org 13 February 2018 https://archive.org/details/soulofmanunderso00wildiala