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Émile Zola

192 quotes

“He wept for truth which was dead, for Heaven which was void. Beyond the marble walls and gleaming jewelled altars, the huge plaster Christ had no longer a single drop of blood in its veins.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 17 (tr. Brian Nelson, 1999)
“La certitude d'avoir empêche de désirer.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) first seen 1895 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 1 (tr. E. A. Vizetelly, 1895)
“You know, they’ll have their revenge." "Who will?" "The women, of course.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 2 (tr. Brian Nelson, 1995)
“It was the usual story of penniless young men, who think themselves obliged by their birth to choose a liberal profession and bury themselves in a sort of vain mediocrity, happy even when they escape starvation, notwithstanding their numerous degrees.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) first seen 1895 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 3 (tr. E. A. Vizetelly, 1895)
“She was not shocked; it seemed to her that every woman had a right to arrange her life as she liked, when she was alone and free in the world. For her own part, however, she had never given way to such ideas; her sense of right and her healthy nature naturally maintained her in the respectability in which she had always lived.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) first seen 1895 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 5 (tr. E. A. Vizetelly, 1895)
“Mais il avait oublié l’inventaire, il ne voyait pas son empire, ces magasins crevant de richesses. Tout avait disparu, les victoires bruyantes d’hier, la fortune colossale de demain. D’un regard désespéré, il suivait Denise, et quand elle eut passé la porte, il n’y eut plus rien, la maison devint noire.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) first seen 1895 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 10 (tr. E. A. Vizetelly, 1895)
“Crever pour crever, je préfère crever de passion que de crever d'ennui!”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) first seen 1895 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 11 (tr. E. A. Vizetelly, 1895)
“You don't understand this language, old fellow: otherwise you'd know that action contains its own reward. To act, to create, to fight against facts, to overcome them or be overcome by them—the whole of human health and happiness is made up of that!”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 11 (tr. Brian Nelson, 1995)
“A woman's opinion, however humble she may be, is always worth listening to, if she's got any sense... If you put yourself in my hands, I shall certainly make a decent man of you.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 12 (tr. Brian Nelson, 1995)
“His creation was a sort of new religion; the churches, gradually deserted by wavering faith, were replaced by his bazaar, in the minds of the idle women of Paris. Woman now came and spent her leisure time in his establishment, those shivering anxious hours which she had formerly passed in churches: a necessary consumption of nervous passion, an ever renewed struggle of the god of dress against the husband, an ever renewed worship of the body with the promise of future divine beauty.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) first seen 1895 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 14 (tr. E. A. Vizetelly, 1895)
“How the thought of meeting lost loved ones would sweeten one’s last moments, how eagerly would one embrace them, and what bliss to live together once more in immortality! He suffered agonies when he considered religion’s charitable lie, which compassionately conceals the terrible truth from feeble creatures. No, everything finished at death, nothing that we had loved was ever reborn, our farewells were for ever. For ever! For ever! That was the dreadful thought that carried his mind hurtling down abysses of emptiness.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 7 (tr. Jean Stewart, 1955)
“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.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 7 (tr. Jean Stewart, 1955)
“The sea with its perpetual surging, its stubborn waves that broke against the cliffs twice a day, irritated him as being a mere senseless force that recked nothing of his grief, and had gone on wearing the same rocks away for centuries, without ever shedding a single tear for the death of a human being. It was too vast, too cold; and he hurried back home again and shut himself up in his room, that he might feel less conscious of his own littleness, less crushed between the boundlessness of sea and sky.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) first seen 1901 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 7 (tr. E. A. Vizetelly, 1901)
“Boredom was at the root of Lazare’s unhappiness, an oppressive, unremitting boredom, exuding from everything like the muddy water of a poisoned spring. He was bored with leisure, with work, with himself even more than with others. Meanwhile he blamed his own idleness for it, he ended by being ashamed of it.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 8 (tr. Jean Stewart, 1955)
“She wanted to live, and live fully, and to give life, she who loved life! What was the good of existing, if you couldn’t give yourself?”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 8 (tr. Jean Stewart, 1955)
“The pride of abnegation had vanished, and she was willing that those she loved should be happy through other instrumentality than her own.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) first seen 1901 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 8 (tr. E. A. Vizetelly, 1901)
“Did not one spend the first half of one’s days in dreams of happiness and the second half in regrets and terrors?”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 9 (tr. Jean Stewart, 1955)
“His was the sceptical boredom of all his generation, no longer the romantic boredom of the Werthers and Renés, regretfully lamenting the passing of old beliefs, but the boredom of the new, doubting heroes, the young chemists who angrily declare the world an impossible place because they have not suddenly found life at the bottom of their retorts.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 9 (tr. Jean Stewart, 1955)
“The ground was trembling under their feet, and they clung to the resolutions made in their calmer hours so as not to sink into the abyss.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 9 (tr. Jean Stewart, 1955)
“If the world is to die of misery, at any rate let it die cheerfully, and in sympathy with itself!”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) first seen 1901 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 10 (tr. E. A. Vizetelly, 1901)
“On a pitch black, starless night, a solitary man was trudging along the main road from Marchiennes to Montsou, ten kilometres of cobblestones running straight as a die across the bare plain between fields of beet.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pt. 1, ch. 1 (tr. L. W. Tancock, 1954)
“Blow the candle out, I don’t need to see what my thoughts look like.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pt. 1, ch. 2 (tr. Peter Collier, 1993)
“If people can just love each other a little bit, they can be so happy.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pt. 1, ch. 2 (tr. Roger Pearson, 2004)
“Pendant une demi-heure, le puits en dévora de la sorte, d'une gueule plus ou moins gloutonne, selon la profondeur de l'accrochage où ils descendaient, mais sans un arrêt, toujours affamé, de boyaux géants capables de digérer un peuple.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pt. 1, ch. 3 (tr. Havelock Ellis, 1885)
“It was at times like this that one of those waves of bestiality ran through the mine, the sudden lust of the male that came over a miner when he met one of these girls on all fours, with her rear in the air and her buttocks bursting out of her breeches.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pt. 1, ch. 4 (tr. L. W. Tancock, 1954)
“Why had he found her unattractive? Now that she was all black and her face covered in a thin layer of coal-dust, she had a strange charm.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pt. 1, ch. 4 (tr. Roger Pearson, 2004)
“Il y avait des hommes si ambitieux qu'ils auraient torché les chefs, pour les entendre seulement dire merci.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pt. 2, ch. 3 (tr. Havelock Ellis, 1885)
“What misery! and all these girls, broken by fatigue, were silly enough to come here at night and make babies, more flesh to toil and suffer! It would never end while they went on getting themselves filled with starvelings. Ought they not rather to stop up their wombs and close their thighs tight against approaching disaster? But then, perhaps he was only harbouring these dismal thoughts because he resented being alone when all the others were pairing off to take their pleasure.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pt. 2, ch. 5 (tr. L. W. Tancock, 1954)
“There's only one thing that warms my heart, and that is the thought that we are going to sweep away these bourgeois.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pt. 3, ch. 2 (tr. Havelock Ellis, 1885)
“All round there was a rising tide of beer, widow Désir’s barrels had all been broached, beer had rounded all paunches and was overflowing in all directions, from noses, eyes—and elsewhere. People were so blown out and higgledy-piggledy, that everybody’s elbows or knees were sticking into his neighbour and everybody thought it great fun to feel his neighbour’s elbows. All mouths were grinning from ear to ear in continuous laughter.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pt. 3, ch. 2 (tr. L. W. Tancock, 1954)
“But now, deep in the earth, the miner was waking from his slumber and germinating in the soil like a real seed; and one fine day people would see what was growing in the middle of these fields: yes, men, a whole army of men, would spring up from the earth, and justice would be restored.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pt. 3, ch. 3 (tr. Roger Pearson, 2004)
“And, then, if only there were some truth in what the priests say, if only the poor of this world were rich in the next!" These words were greeted with a burst of laughter, and even the children shrugged their shoulders, for the hard wind blowing from the outer world had taken away all their belief. They harbored a secret fear of ghosts down in the mine, but scoffed at the empty heavens.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pt. 3, ch. 3 (tr. L. W. Tancock, 1954)
“When a man was honest in his dealings, you could forgive him the rest.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pt. 4, ch. 3 (tr. Roger Pearson, 2004)
“Antagonism breeds extremism, and it was turning one into the zealous revolutionary and the other into an excessive advocate of caution, taking them beyond what they really thought and forcing them to adopt positions of which they then became prisoners.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pt. 4, ch. 4 (tr. Roger Pearson, 2004)
“They, poor devils, were just machine-fodder, they were penned like cattle in housing-estates, the big Companies were gradually dominating their whole lives, regulating slavery, threatening to enlist all the nation’s workers, millions of hands to increase the wealth of a thousand idlers.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pt. 4, ch. 7 (tr. L. W. Tancock, 1954)
“The fire from heaven had fallen on this Sodom in the bowels of the earth where long ago pit girls committed untold abominations, and it had fallen so swiftly that they had not had time to come up, so that to this very day they were still burning down in this hell.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pt. 5, ch. 1 (tr. L. W. Tancock, 1954)
“They were brutes, no doubt, but brutes who could not read, and who were dying of hunger.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pt. 5, ch. 3 (tr. Havelock Ellis, 1885)
“What idiot imagined that happiness in this world depended on a share-out of wealth? These starry-eyed revolutionaries could demolish society and build a brave new world if they liked, but they would not by so doing add one single joy to man’s lot, nor relieve him of a single pain merely by sharing out the cake. In fact they would only spread out the unhappiness of the world, and some day they would make the very dogs howl with despair by removing them from the simple satisfaction of their instincts and raising them to the unsatisfied yearnings of passion.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pt. 5, ch. 5 (tr. L. W. Tancock, 1954)
“No, the only good was to be found in non-existence or, if one had to exist, in being a tree, a stone, or lower still, a grain of sand, for that cannot bleed under the heel of every passer-by.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pt. 5, ch. 5 (tr. L. W. Tancock, 1954)
“« Du pain! est-ce que ça suffit, imbéciles ? »”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pt. 5, ch. 5 (tr. Havelock Ellis, 1885)
“Oh, those bourgeois scum! One day they’d stuff 'em with champagne and truffles till their guts burst!”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pt. 5, ch. 6 (tr. Roger Pearson, 2004)
“Oui, c'est votre idée, à vous tous, les ouvriers français, déterrer un trésor, pour le manger seul ensuite, dans un coin d'égoïsme et de fainéantise. Vous avez beau crier contre les riches, le courage vous manque de rendre aux pauvres l'argent que la fortune vous envoie... Jamais vous ne serez dignes du bonheur, tant que vous aurez quelque chose à vous, et que votre haine des bourgeois viendra uniquement de votre besoin enragé d'être des bourgeois à leur place.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pt. 6, ch. 3 (tr. Havelock Ellis, 1885)
“This sounded the death knell of small family businesses, soon to be followed by the disappearance of the individual entrepreneur, gobbled up one by one by the increasingly hungry ogre of capitalism, and drowned by the rising tide of large companies.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pt. 7, ch. 1 (tr. Peter Collier, 1993)
“She was haunted by the vision of Chaval, and rambled on about him, about their cat and dog life together, the one day when he had been nice to her, in Jean-Bart, and the other days or alternate caresses and blows, when he half killed her with his embraces after nearly beating her to death.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pt. 7, ch. 5 (tr. L. W. Tancock, 1954)
“Des hommes poussaient, une armée noire, vengeresse, qui germait lentement dans les sillons, grandissant pour les récoltes du siècle futur, et dont la germination allait faire bientôt éclater la terre.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pt. 7, ch. 6 (tr. L. W. Tancock, 1954)
“What was Art, after all, if not simply giving out what you have inside you? Didn’t it all boil down to sticking a female in front of you and painting her as you feel she is?”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 2 (tr. Thomas Walton and Roger Pearson, 1993)
“« Ah! bonne terre, prends-moi, toi qui es la mère commune, l'unique source de la vie! toi l'éternelle, l'immortelle, où circule l'âme du monde, cette sève épandue jusque dans les pierres, et qui fait des arbres nos grands frères immobiles! ... Oui, je veux me perdre en toi, c'est toi que je sens là, sous mes membres, m'étreignant et m'enflammant, c'est toi seule qui seras dans mon oeuvre comme la force première, le moyen et le but, l'arche immense, où toutes les choses s'animent du souffle de tous les êtres! »”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) first seen 1886 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 6 (tr. E. A. Vizetelly, 1886)
“Haven’t I told you scores of times that you’re always beginners, and the greatest satisfaction was not in being at the top, but in getting there, in the enjoyment you get out of scaling the heights? ... If only we could have the courage to hang ourselves in front of our last masterpiece!”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 7 (tr. Thomas Walton and Roger Pearson, 1993)
“From the moment I start a new novel, life’s just one endless torture.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 9 (tr. Thomas Walton and Roger Pearson, 1993)
“The thing is, work has simply swamped my whole existence. ... It’s like a germ planted in the skull that devours the brain, spreads to the trunk and the limbs, and destroys the entire body in time.”
Émile Zola (1840–1902) said by 1902 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 9 (tr. Thomas Walton and Roger Pearson, 1993)