246 Quotes by Émile Zola

In Paris, everything’s for sale: wise virgins, foolish virgins, truth and lies, tears and smiles.

I believe that the future of humanity is in the progress of reason through science. I believe that the pursuit of truth, through science, is the divine ideal which man should propose to himself.

The fear of life, the fear of burdens and of duties, of annoyances and of catastrophes! The fear of life, which makes us, through dread of its sufferings, refuse its joys. Ah! I tell you, this cowardliness enrages me; I cannot forgive it. We must live - live a complete life - live all our life.

Vines will be planted, corn will spring up, a whole growth of new crops; and people will still fall in love in vintages and harvests yet to come. Life is eternal; it is a perpetual renewal of birth and growth.

When people have not the same ideas, it is certainly better not to talk about them.

Up to this day, there has been no proof of the existence of any intelligence other than the human.

People like comfort; that's natural. But as for making money simply for the sake of making it, and giving yourself far more trouble and anxiety to gain it than you can ever get pleasure from it when it's gained, why, as for me, I'd rather sit still and cross my arms.

One must be arrogant, indeed, to imagine that one can take everything in one's hand and know everything!

I defy you to find any real will, any reasoning force, outside of life. And everything is there; there is, in the world, no other will than this force which impels everything to life, a life even broader and higher.