The engineer was to them a microcosm, a compound of every science, a possessor of all human knowledge. It was better to be with Cyrus in a desert island, than without him in the most flourishing town in the United States. With him they could want nothing…
Book 1875
The Mysterious Island quotes
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About the book
During the American Civil War, five Union prisoners escape Richmond in a balloon and are swept by a storm to an uncharted island in the Pacific. Led by the engineer Cyrus Harding, they build a working colony from nothing, making fire, iron, glass and explosives with their own knowledge and hands, while odd events hint that they may not be alone.
6 quotes
I have often thought of all these things, my friends, and I seriously believe that the aspect of our globe will some day be completely changed; that by the raising of new continents the sea will cover the old, and that, in future ages, a Columbus will go to…
Pencroft: Well, captain, where are we going to begin? Cyrus Harding: At the beginning. And in fact, the settlers were compelled to begin “at the very beginning.”
Pencroft: …we will make a little America of this island! We will build towns, we will establish railways, start telegraphs, and one fine day, when it is quite changed, quite put in order and quite civilized, we will go and offer it to the government of the…
Yes, my friends, I believe that water will one day be employed as fuel, that hydrogen and oxygen which constitute it, used singly or together, will furnish an inexhaustible source of heat and light, of an intensity of which coal is not capable. … I believe…
“Are we rising again?” “No. On the contrary.” “Are we descending?” “Worse than that, captain! we are falling!”