The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen quotes

… has this fellow to the truth, that he sometimes adds, as soon as the crocodile missed his tail, he turned about, snatched the couteau de chasse out of Monsieur’s hand, and swallowed it with such eagerness that it pierced his heart and killed him immediately!

The little regard which this impudent knave has to veracity makes me sometimes apprehensive that my real facts may fall under suspicion, by being found in company with his confounded inventions.

[The Baron’s eyes have retained fire ever since, and appear particularly illuminated when he relates this anecdote.] A hearty blow drew sparks again; the shot went off, and I killed fifty brace of ducks, twenty widgeons, and three couple of teals.

Presence of mind is the soul of manly exercises.

If soldiers and sailors owe to it many of their lucky escapes, hunters and sportsmen are not less beholden to it for many of their successes.

I was not much pleased with my awkward situation—with a wolf face to face; our ogling was not of the most pleasant kind. If I withdrew my arm, then the animal would fly the more furiously upon me; that I saw in his flaming eyes.

In short, I laid hold of his tail, turned him inside out like a glove, and flung him to the ground, where I left him.

The same expedient would not have answered against a mad dog, which soon after came running against me in a narrow street at St. Petersburg. Run who can, I thought;

and this we fully accomplished by several very fatiguing and glorious campaigns under the command of that great general I mentioned before.

Modesty forbids individuals to arrogate to themselves great successes or victories, the glory of which is generally engrossed by the commander⁠—nay, which is rather awkward, by kings and queens who never smelt gunpowder but at the field-days and reviews of their troops;

never saw a field of battle, or an enemy in battle array.

I recovered, but knew not how to get out again; however, I dug slopes or steps with my fingernails [the Baron’s nails were then of forty years’ growth], and easily accomplished it.

Peace was soon after concluded with the Turks, and gaining my liberty, I left St. Petersburg at the time of that singular revolution, when the emperor in his cradle, his mother, the Duke of Brunswick, her father, Field-Marshal Munich, and many others were sent to Siberia.

The winter was then so uncommonly severe all over Europe, that ever since the sun seems to be frostbitten. At my return to this place, I felt on the road greater inconveniences than those I had experienced on my setting out.

at length the thawing entertainment concluded, as I shall this short account of my Russian travels.

Some travellers are apt to advance more than is perhaps strictly true; if any of the company entertain a doubt of my veracity, I shall only say to such, I pity their want of faith, and must request they will take leave before I begin the second part of my adventures, which are as strictly founded in fact as those I have already related.

nor will you be surprised when I inform you I am descended from Dutch parents. [The Baron’s ancestors have but lately settled there; in another part of his adventures he boasts of royal blood.]

My situation, while I sat there, was rather cool, but the carpenter’s art soon relieved me.

this dreadful conflagration had such an effect upon them that they were incapable of taking the least refreshment for three months after, but, chameleon-like, lived upon the air.

If any gentleman will say he doubts the truth of this story, I will fine him a gallon of brandy and make him drink it at one draught.

About two months after I had done the besieged this service, one morning, as I sat at breakfast with General Elliot, a shell (for I had not time to destroy their mortars as well as their cannon) entered the apartment we were sitting in;

they came immediately to the spot. There was no time to be lost. A most fortunate thought arrived in my pericranium just at that instant.

I took off the skin and head of the dead bear in half the time that some people would be in skinning a rabbit, and wrapped myself in it, placing my own head directly under Bruin’s;

the whole herd came round me immediately, and my apprehensions threw me into a most piteous situation to be sure: however, my scheme turned out a most admirable one for my own safety. They all came smelling, and evidently took me for a brother Bruin;

her majesty’s reply convinced me of the strength of her affections, and the dignity of her mind; her late indisposition was entirely owing (as she, kind creature! was pleased to express herself in a late conversation with the Prince Dolgoroucki) to my cruelty.

What the sex see in me I cannot conceive, but the Empress is not the only female sovereign who has offered me her hand.

Some people have very illiberally reported that Captain Phipps did not proceed as far as he might have done upon that expedition. Here it becomes my duty to acquit him;

Dealers in eyes are on that account very numerous in most parts of the moon, and in this article alone all the inhabitants are whimsical: sometimes green and sometimes yellow eyes are the fashion.

I know these things appear strange; but if the shadow of a doubt can remain on any person’s mind, I say, let him take a voyage there himself, and then he will know I am a traveller of veracity.

I caught one in each hand, and squeezed him till he cried out most lustily; however, in this position I held him till I starved him to death.

You may laugh, gentlemen, but this was soon accomplished, as I prevented him licking his paws.

From hence I travelled up to St. Petersburg a second time: here an old friend gave me a most excellent pointer, descended from the famous bitch before-mentioned, that littered while she was hunting a hare.

Therefore, my dear friends and companions, have confidence in what I say, and pay honour to the tales of Munchausen.

A traveller has a right to relate and embellish his adventures as he pleases, and it is very unpolite to refuse that deference and applause they deserve.

Having passed some time in England since the completion of my former memoirs, I at length began to revolve in my mind what a prodigious field of discovery must be in the interior part of Africa. I could not sleep with the thoughts of it;

The venerable Marquis de Bellecourt stopped for a moment ere he entered his carriage. Thrice he looked back, and thrice he wiped the starting tear from his eye. “Yes,” said he, “for once, at least, truth shall be found—in the bottom of a well!”

Peace to thy ghost, most noble marquis! a King of kings shall pity thee;

and thousands who are yet unborn shall owe their happiness to thee, and have cause to bless the thousands, perhaps, that shall never even know thy name; but Munchausen’s self shall celebrate thy glory!

… a cold climate near the South Pole—Arrives in England, and lays an account of his expedition before the Privy Council—Great preparations for a new expedition—The Sphinx, Gog and Magog, and a great company attend him—The ideas of Hilaro Frosticos respecting the interior parts of Africa.

I perceived with grief and consternation the miscarriage of all my apparatus; yet I was not absolutely dejected: a great mind is never known but in adversity.

With permission of the Dutch governor the chariot was properly laid up in a great storehouse, erected at the water’s edge, and the bulls received every refreshment possible after so terrible a voyage.

It engrossed for several days the chitchat of the whole empire.

Fudge, fudge, fudge, resounded in all companies and in all places, from the rising until the setting of the sun; and even at night, when gentle sleep refreshed the rest of mortals, the ladies of all that country were dreaming of fudge!

“Upon my honour,” said Kitty, as she was adjusting her modesty piece before the glass, just after getting out of bed, “there is scarce anything I would not give to know what this fudge can be.” “La!

“No, my dear Fragrantia,” said I, tenderly taking her in my arms while she melted into tears; “never, never, will I play upon any other—!”

Oh! ’twas divine, to see her like a summer’s morning, all blushing and full of dew!

It was of an immense height, far beyond anything that ever had been before erected, and of such gentle ascent, that a regiment of cavalry with a train of cannon could ascend with perfect ease and facility.

It seemed like a rainbow in the heavens, the base of which appeared to rise in the centre of Africa, and the other extremity seemed to stoop into great Britain.

A most noble bridge indeed, and a piece of masonry that has outdone Sir Christopher Wren.

I threw the bear from me, but the Nareskin remained sprawling, unable to extricate his head from the bear’s jaws, imploring for mercy.

I gave the wretch his life: a lion preys not upon carcases.

At the same time my troop had effectually routed the bears and the rest of their adversaries. I was merciful, and ordered quarter to be given.

They seemed to think it admirable that such little beings as we men should attempt so magnificent a performance, that would be observable even in a separate world.

Thus having wedded the Atlantic Ocean to the South Sea, I returned to England, and found Wauwau precisely in the very spot whence she had set out, after having led us a chase all round the world.

I attempted to drive on, but the ground, or rather immense vault, giving way, my chariot and all went down precipitately.

Stunned by the fall, it was some moments before I could recollect myself, when at length, to my amazement, I perceived myself fallen into the Alexandrine Library, overwhelmed in an ocean of books

; thousands of volumes came tumbling on my head amidst the ruins of that part of the vault through which my chariot had descended, and for a time buried my bulls and all beneath a heap of learning.

Hermes Trismegistus especially is a most antique looking being, with a beard half a yard long, covered with a robe of golden embroidery, and prates like a parrot.

He will cut a very brilliant figure in the Museum.

Having made a track with my chariot from sea to sea, I ordered my Turks and Russians to begin, and in a few hours we had the pleasure of seeing a fleet of British East Indiamen in full sail through the canal.