"The ocean 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."

"'There is no impossibility,' said the Professor, 'for him who wills.'"

"the Indians were in the act of plunging themselves into the drunkenness caused by liquid opium mingled with hemp."

"He also describes her as – ahem – 'as fair as a European'. (French: Cette femme était jeune, blanche comme une Européenne.) Note that the French reads blanche, i.e., 'white'."

"The Portuguese are the Chinese of Europe—backward and superstitious."