Quotes from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Quotations follow the William Butcher translation (Oxford University Press, 2009) — our recommended edition.

1. 2

   Mobilis in mobili

2. 3

   The sea is everything. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides.

3. 4

   I am the law, and I am the judge! I am the oppressed, and there is the oppressor! Through him I have lost all that I loved, cherished, and venerated—country, wife, children, father, and mother. I saw all perish!

4. 5

   I, Captain Nemo, on this 21st day of March, 1868, have reached the South Pole on the ninetieth degree; and I take possession of this part of the globe, equal to one-sixth of the known continents. In whose name, Captain? In my own, sir!

5. 6

   We may brave human laws, but we cannot resist natural ones.

6. 7

   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.

7. 8

   The earth does not want new continents, but new men.

8. 9

   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!

9. 10

   The year 1866 was signalised by a remarkable incident, a mysterious and puzzling phenomenon, which doubtless no one has yet forgotten.

10. 11

    And to the question asked by Ecclesiastes three thousand years ago, “That which is far off and exceeding deep, who can find it out?” two men alone of all now living have the right to give an answer——CAPTAIN NEMO AND MYSELF.

11. 12

    These musicians are the contemporaries of Orpheus; for in the memory of the dead all chronological differences are effaced; and I am dead, Professor; as much dead as those of your friends who are sleeping six feet under the earth!