Top quotes by Emile Zola

The fate of animals is of greater importance to me than the fear of appearing ridiculous; it is indissolubly connected with the fate of men. Votes: 12

One forges one's style on the terrible anvil of daily deadlines. Votes: 8

I am an artist... I am here to live out loud. Votes: 7

If people can just love each other a little bit, they can be so happy. Votes: 7

Through the centuries, the history of peoples is but a lesson in mutual tolerance. Votes: 7

Classical education has deformed everything, and has imposed upon us as geniuses men of correct, facile talent, who follow the beaten track. Votes: 6

There are two men inside the artist, the poet and the craftsman. One is born a poet. One becomes a craftsman. Votes: 6

I am little concerned with beauty or perfection. I don't care for the great centuries. All I care about is life, struggle, intensity. Votes: 4

If I cannot overwhelm with my quality, I will overwhelm with my quantity. Votes: 4

He [Muffat] experienced a sense of pleasure mingled with remorse, the sort of pleasure peculiar to those Catholics whom the fear of hell spurs on to commit sin. Votes: 4

When younger, he had been fun-loving to the point of tedium. Votes: 4

Since the same human mire remains beneath, does not all civilisation reduce itself to the superiority of smelling nice and living well? Votes: 4

What will be the death of me are buillabaisses, food spiced with pimiento, shellfish, and a load of exquisite rubbish which I eat in disproportionate quantities. Votes: 4

The road to Lourdes is littered with crutches, but not one wooden leg. Votes: 3

She might have liked to try to strangle him with those slender fingers of hers, but she wanted to make a job of it and this great patience with which she waited for her claws to grow was in itself a form of enjoyment. Votes: 2

The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work. Votes: 2

The truth is on the march and nothing will stop it. Votes: 2

Civilization will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest. Votes: 2

Man's highest duty is to protect animals from cruelty. Votes: 2

They have so smothered me in their middle-class refinement that I don't know how there can be any blood left in my veins. I lowered my eyes, put on a dismal, silly expression, just like them; I was just as dead-and-alive as they were." Votes: 1

The more grievous the sin, the greater the repentance, God was bidding His time." Votes: 1

It was always the same; other people gave up loving before she did. They got spoilt, or else they went away; in any case, they were partly to blame. Why did it happen so? She herself never changed; when she loved anyone, it was for life. She could not understand desertion; it was something so huge, so monstrous that the notion of it made her little heart break. Votes: 1

A god of kindness would be charitable to all. Your god of wrath and punishment is but a monstrous phantasy...It is not necessary that one should humble oneself to deserve assistance, it is sufficient that one should suffer. Votes: 1

Did not one spend the first half of one's days in dreams of happiness and the second half in regrets and terrors? Votes: 1

Never subject to the rules, believing that the correct judgement and healthy nature keep her in the honesty she lived in. Votes: 1

Monsieur Josserand died very quietly - a victim of his own honesty. He had lived a useless life, and he went off, worthy to the last, weary of all the petty things in life, done to death by the heartless conduct of the only human beings that he had ever loved. Votes: 1

It all seemed a hollow sham now - that strict code, that conscientious virtue that condemned her to the sterile joys of pious women! No, no, she'd had enough of that; she wanted to live! Votes: 1

In my view you cannot claim to have seen something until you have photographed it. Votes: 0

The camembert with its venison scent defeats the Marolles and Limbourg dull smells; It spreads its exhalation, smothering the other scents under its surprising breath abundance. Votes: 0

If you shut up truth, and bury it underground, it will but grow. Votes: 0

If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way. Votes: 0

I would rather die of passion than of boredom. Votes: 0

Governments are suspicious of literature because it is a force that eludes them. Votes: 0

I have but one passion: to enlighten those who have been kept in the dark, in the name of humanity which has suffered so much and is entitled to happiness. My fiery protest is simply the cry of my very soul. Votes: 0

Nothing develops intelligence like travel. Votes: 0

Respectable people... What bastards! Votes: 0

A god of kindness would be charitable to all. Your god of wrath and punishment is but a monstrous phantasy. Votes: 0

The past was but the cemetery of our illusions: one simply stubbed one's toes on the gravestones. Votes: 0

Lovers are made by a kiss. Votes: 0

Sin ought to be something exquisite, my dear boy. Votes: 0

Oh, that's typical of you modern young men; you've nibbled at science and it's made you ill, because you've not been able to satisfy that old craving for the absolute that you absorbed in your nurseries. You'd like science to give you all the answers at one go, whereas we're only just beginning to understand it, and it'll probably never be anything but an eternal quest. And so you repudiate science, you fall back on religion, and religion won't have you any more. Then you relapse into pessimism...Yes, it's the disease of our age, of the end of the century: you're all inverted Werthers. Votes: 0

In love as in speculation there is much filth; in love also, people think only of their own gratification; yet without love there would be no life, and the world would come to an end. Votes: 0

Why is it that my heart is so touched whenever I meet a dog lost in our noisy streets? Why do I feel such anguished pity when I see one of these creatures coming and going, sniffing everyone, frightened, despairing of even finding its master? Votes: 0

A new dynasty is never founded without a struggle. Blood makes good manure. Votes: 0

Over all crowds there seems to float a vague distress, an atmosphere of pervasive melancholy, as if any large gathering of people creates an aura of terror and pity. Votes: 0

The conclusion does not belong to the artist. Votes: 0

Violence has never prospered, you can't remake the world in a day. Anyone who promises to change everything for you all at once is either a fool or a rogue! Votes: 0

From the moment I start a new novel, life's just one endless torture. The first few chapters may go fairly well and I may feel there's still a chance to prove my worth, but that feeling soon disappears and every day I feel less and less satisfied. Votes: 0

The day is not far off when one ordinary carrot may be pregnant with revolution. Votes: 0

When lovers kiss on the cheeks, it is because they are searching, feeling for one another's lips. Lovers are made by a kiss. Votes: 0

They talked so, with secret hearts, without needing words, talking of other things... They could have suddenly continued their confessions aloud, without ceasing to understand each other. Votes: 0

If something's just, I'll let myself be hacked to bits for it. Votes: 0

Oh, the fools, like a lot of good little schoolboys, scared to death of anything they've been taught is wrong! Votes: 0

Blow the candle out, I don't need to see what my thoughts look like. Votes: 0

Did science promise happiness? I do not believe it. It promised truth, and the question is to know if we will ever make happiness with truth. Votes: 0

The word realist means nothing to me, because I would subordinate reality to temperament. Give me what is true and I applaud; but give me what is individual and alive and I applaud even more. Votes: 0

Let us eat, drink and satisfy our coarse appetites, but let us keep our souls sacred and apart. Votes: 0

An entire lifetime would not be long enough for you to exhaust the glance of the young harvest-girl. Votes: 0

Inability, human incapacity, is the only boundary to an art. Votes: 0

I do not despair in the least of ultimate triumph. I repeat it with intense conviction. Votes: 0

These young people naturally grow up with ideas different from ours, for they are born for times when we shall no longer be here Votes: 0

A ruined man fell from her hands like a ripe fruit, to lie rotting on the ground. Votes: 0

It is not necessary that one should humble oneself to deserve assistance, it is sufficient that one should suffer. Votes: 0

The vague torment of ... ambition. Votes: 0

When truth is buried, it grows. It chokes. It gathers such an explosive force that on the day it bursts out, it blows up everything with it. Votes: 0

Art for me...is a negation of society, an affirmation of the individual, outside of all the rules and all the demands of society. Votes: 0

It is not I who am strong, it is reason, it is truth. Votes: 0

When you have a sorrow that is too great it leaves no room for any other. Votes: 0

The only basis for living is believing in life, loving it, and applying the whole force of one's intellect to know it better. Votes: 0

Everything is only a dream. Votes: 0

Why then should money be blamed for all the dirt and crimes it causes? For is love less filthy -- love which creates life? Votes: 0

They dared not peer down into their own natures, down into the feverish confusion that filled their minds with a kind of dense, acrid mist. Votes: 0

How evil life must be if it were indeed necessary that such imploring cries, such cries of physical and moral wretchedness, should ever and ever ascend to heaven! Votes: 0

And that wreched creature without hands or feet, who had to be put to bed and fed like a child, that pitiable remnant of a man, whose almost vanished life was nothing more than one scream of pain, cried out in furious indignation: 'What a fool one must be to go and kill oneself!' " - 'Joy of Life Votes: 0

Art is a corner of creation seen through a temperament. Votes: 0

Don't go looking at me like that because you'll wear your eyes out. Votes: 0

Every wave is a water sprite who swims in the current, each current is a path which snakes towards my palace, and my palace is fluidly built at the bottom of the lake, in the triangle of earth, fire and water. Votes: 0

Has science ever retreated? No! It is Catholicism which has always retreated before her, and will always be forced to retreat. Votes: 0

She was cold by nature, self-love predominating over passion; rather than being virtuous, she preferred to have her pleasures all to herself. Votes: 0

Yes! live life with every fibre of one's being, surrender oneself to it, with no thoughts of rebellion, without deluding oneself that one can improve it and render it painless. Votes: 0

Since the same human mire remains beneath, does not all civilization reduce itself to the superiority of smelling nice and living well? Votes: 0

The thought is a deed. Of all deeds she fertilizes the world most. Votes: 0

My fiery protest is simply the cry of my very soul. Votes: 0

Paris flared -- Paris, which the divine sun had sown with light, and where in glory waved the great future harvest of Truth and of Justice. Votes: 0

When sometimes, behind his back, they called him a tyrant, he merely smiled and uttered this profound observation: If some day I turn liberal, they will say I have let them down. Votes: 0

I am spending delightful afternoons in my garden, watching everything living around me. As I grow older, I feel everything departing, and I love everything with more passion. Votes: 0

When a peasant begins to feel the need for instruction, he usually becomes fiercely calculating. Votes: 0

Top quotes by Emile Zola

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