Émile Zola Quotes

Hélène slowly surveyed the room. In this respectable society, amongst these apparently decent middle-class people, were there none but faithless wives? With her strict provincial morality, she was amazed at the licensed promiscuity of Parisian life.

Quem era o idiota que punha a felicidade deste mundo na repartição da riqueza?

In the sudden change that had come over her heart she no longer recognized herself

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.

The Revolution of 1848 found all the Rougons on the lookout, frustrated by their bad luck, and ready to use any means necessary to advance their cause. They were a family of bandits lying in wait, ready to plunder and steal.

The Empire was on the point of turning Paris into the bawdy house of Europe. The gang of fortune-seekers who had succeeded in stealing a throne required a reign of adventures, shady transactions, sold consciences, bought women, and rampant drunkenness.

There she stood, by herself, amidst all her treasures, with a whole horde of men grovelling at her feet. Like those dreaded monsters of old whose lairs were littered with bones, she was walking on skulls and surrounded by cataclysms.

Don't keep looking at me like that, you’ll wear your eyes out.

À eux deux, la femme, nerveuse et hypocrite, l'homme, sanguin et vivant en brute, ils faisaient un couple puissamment lié. Ils se complétaient, se protégeaient mutuellement. Le soir, à table, dans les clartés pâles de la lampe, on sentait la force de leur union, à voir le visage épais et souriant de Laurent, en face du masque muet et impénétrable de Thérèse.

But you said so yourself,the poor lass will die of it...Do you really want her to die?
'Yes, I'd rather she died than have a bad life.

The public was astounded; rumors flew of the most horrible acts, the most monstrous deceptions, lies that were an affront to our history. The public, naturally, was taken in. No punishment could be too harsh. The people clamored for the traitor to be publicly stripped of his rank and demanded to see him writhing with remorse on his rock of infamy. Could these things be true, these unspeakable acts, these deeds so dangerous that they must be carefully hidden behind closed doors to keep Europe from going up in flames? No! They were nothing but the demented fabrications of Major du Paty de Clam, a cover-up of the most preposterous fantasies imaginable. To be convinced of this one need only read carefully the accusation as it was presented before the court martial. How flimsy it is! The fact that someone could have been convicted on this charge is the ultimate iniquity. I defy decent men to read it without a stir of indignation in their hearts and a cry of revulsion, at the thought of the undeserved punishment being meted out there on Devil's Island. He knew several languages: a crime! He carried no compromising papers: a crime! He would occasionally visit his country of origin: a crime! He was hard-working, and strove to be well informed: a crime! He did not become confused: a crime! He became confused: a crime! And how childish the language is, how groundless the accusation!

Nothing could be more heartrending than this mute and motionless despair.

Death and the sowing of seeds: and the life of bread growing up out of the earth.

I know nothing sadder than a hunchback in love or an ugly woman full of romantic ideals.

Foucarmont had twice fought duels, and he was in consequence most politely treated, and admitted into every circle.