Émile Zola Quotes - Page 2

The festivity had reached that apogee of joy when you face the happy fate of being crushed to death.
Émile Zola
I would rather die of passion than of boredom.
Émile Zola
Why then should money be blamed for all the dirt and crimes it causes? For is love less filthy - love which creates life?
Émile Zola
... Have you ever reflected that posterity may not be the faultless dispenser of justice that we dream of? One consoles oneself for being insulted and denied, by reyling on the equity of the centuries to come; just as the faithful endure all the abominations of this earth in the firm belief of another life, in which each will be rewarded according to his deserts. But suppose Paradise exists no more for the artist than it does for the Catholic, suppose that future generations prolong the misunderstanding and prefer amiable little trifles to vigorous works! Ah! What a sell it would be, eh? To have led a convict's life - to have screwed oneself down to one's work - all for a mere delusion!..."Bah! What does it matter? Well, there's nothing hereafter. We are even madder than the fools who kill themselves for a woman. When the earth splits to pieces in space like a dry walnut, our works won't add one atom to its dust.
Émile Zola
Art is a corner of creation seen through a temperament.
Émile Zola
The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.
Émile Zola
Civilization will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest.
Émile Zola
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.
Émile Zola
Death had to take her little by little, bit by bit, dragging her along to the bitter end of the miserable existence she'd made for herself. They never even knew what she did die of. Some spoke of a chill. But the truth was that she died from poverty, from the filth and the weariness of her wretched life.
Émile Zola
When lovers kiss on the cheeks, it is because they are searching, feeling for one another's lips. Lovers are made by a kiss.
Émile Zola
If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.
Émile Zola