Quotes from Émile Zola

Je l'ai dit ailleurs, et je le répète ici : quand on enferme la vérité sous terre, elle s'y amasse, elle y prend une force telle d'explosion, que, le jour où elle éclate, elle fait tout sauter avec elle.

GerçeÄŸi gömmeniz boÅŸuna, topra??n alt?nda yol al?yor; bir gün, her yandan f??k?racak, öç bitkileri olarak aç?lacakt?r.

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; all this was revealed to the dying man, as the only courageous and wise attitude possible for a man of science.

Her son would be incomparably handsome, good and powerful. He would be the expected Messiah; it is fortunate for humanity that all mothers have this pathetic faith, without it mankind would not have the ever-renascent strength to go on living.

But his doubts were again coming back to him; when you needed a miracle to gain belief, it means that you are incapable of believing. There is no need for the Almighty to prove His existence.

such a strange look of repugnance and horror

Life in the silent, secluded little mansion in Passy was as smooth and regular as the gentle ticking of its antiquated clocks. (89)

It was a house of shadows, where the sunshine was filtered down to a guttering night-light strength between the laths of the window-shutters. (89)

Il a besoin de cette femme pour vivre comme on a besoin de boire et de manger.

Vois, ce sont les autres, c'est tout le monde qui va se mettre entre nous.

The train ran on without a driver, on and on, like some mindless, unseeing beast...

Ne doutez pas de moi, laissez-moi la force de me vaincre.

What scum respectable people are!

Even Émile Zola was reduced to disingenuously commenting on the work's formal qualities rather than acknowledging the subject matter. He paid tribute to Manet's honesty, however, "When our artists give us Venuses, they correct nature, they lie. Édouard Manet asked himself why lie, why not tell the truth; he introduced us to Olympia, this fille of our time, whom you meet on the sidewalks.

Understand this! A year ago General Billot and Generals de Boisdeffre and Gonse knew that Dreyfus was innocent, and they have kept this frightful thing to themselves. And these men sleep and have wives and children whom they love!

Lastly, I accuse the first court-martial of having violated the law by condemning an accused person on one document kept secret, and I accuse the second court-martial of having, in obedience to orders, covered this illegality by committing in its turn the judicial crime of knowingly acquitting a guilty person.

And still, again and again, even more distinctly than before, as if they had been working their way closer to the surface, the comrades tapped and tapped. Beneath the blazing rays of the sun, on this morning when the world seemed young, such was the stirring which the land carried in its womb. New men were starting into life, a black army of vengeance slowly germinating in the furrows, growing for the harvests of the century to come; and soon this germination would tear the earth apart.

II y avait en elle un manque d'équilibre entre le sang et les nerfs, une sorte de détraquement du cerveau et du cÅ"ur, qui la faisait vivre en dehors de la vie ordinaire.

The sea with its perpetual oscillation, that obstinate swell sweeping up to the cliffs twice a day, exasperated him: it was senseless force, indifferent to his grief, wearing down the same rocks for centuries while never mourning the death of a single human being. it was too vast, too cold; and he would hurry home and shut himself indoors, to feel less insignificant, less crushed between the dual infinities of sea and sky.

vexation, yet filled with unconscious regret for the terrible unknown things that might have, but had not, happened (23)

Now we need something else...and I should be the one person to be reckoned with! (37)

an insane love for nudity desired but never possessed (42)

a kind of breathing space in a Paris that was too small, too stuffy for the ambition in their breasts (65)

il n'envisageait que les biens célestes, ne pouvant comprendre qu'on mît en balance une éternité de félicité avec quelques heures d'une joie périssable.