“I wish to explore what mad people meant to say, what was on their minds. Their testimonies are eloquent of their hopes”

God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (1999)

Source: The House Of Commons At Work (1993), Chapter 2, The Parliament Buildings, p. 28

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

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

As quoted in The Christian Pioneer (1856) edited by Joseph Foulkes Winks, p. 84. Also in The Christian Spectator, vol. 3 (1821), p. 186 http://books.google.com/books?id=mv4oAAAAYAAJ&dq=ah%2C%20how%20imperfect%20and%20deficient!%20I%20am%20not%20what%20I%20wish%20to%20be&pg=PA186#v=onepage&q=ah,%20how%20imperfect%20and%20deficient!%20I%20am%20not%20what%20I%20wish%20to%20be&f=false
Often paraphrased as I am not the man I ought to be, I am not the man I wish to be, and I am not the man I hope to be, but by the grace of God, I am not the man I used to be."'

"Messages for the Future", Vsauce (23 September, 2015)

Source: Education of a Wandering Man (1989), Ch. 1
Context: As can be guessed from the title, this book is about education, but not education in the accepted sense. No man or woman had a greater appreciation for schools than I, although few have spent less time in them. No matter how much I admire our schools, I know that no university exists that can provide an education; what a university can provide is an outline, to give the learner a direction and guidance. The rest one has to do for oneself.
If I were asked what education should give, I would say it should offer a breadth of view, ease of understanding, tolerance for others, and a background from which the mind can explore in any direction.
Education should provide the tools for widening and deepening of life, for increased appreciation of all one sees or experiences. It should equip a person to live life well, to understand what is happening about him, for to live life well one must live with awarenes.
No one can get an education, for of necessity education is a continuing process. If it does nothing else, it should provide students with the tools for learning, acquaint them with the methods of study and research, methods of pursuing and idea. We can only hope they come upon an issue they wish to pursue.

Variant: And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected.
Source: East of Eden (1952)
Context: And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about.
Context: Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in art, in music, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.
And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of man. By disparagement, by starvation, by repressions, forced direction, and the stunning blows of conditioning, the free, roving mind is being pursued, roped, blunted, drugged. It is a sad suicidal course our species seems to have taken.
And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about. I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for it is the one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are lost.