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The past was but the cemetery of our illusions: one simply stubbed one’s toes on the gravestones.

Emile Zola

She was cold by nature, self-love predominating over passion; rather than being virtuous, she preferred to have her pleasures all to herself.
EMILE ZOLA

Cold Happiness Herself Nature Passion Virtuous
When you have a sorrow that is too great it leaves no room for any other.
EMILE ZOLA

Greatness Leaving Sorrow
Respectable people, What bastards!
EMILE ZOLA

People Respect
Truth is on the march, and nothing will stop it.
EMILE ZOLA

Stop Truth Way
The only basis for living is believing in life, loving it, and applying the whole force of one’s intellect to know it better.
EMILE ZOLA

Believe Better Force Intellect Live Love
Oh, the fools, like a lot of good little schoolboys, scared to death of anything they’ve been taught is wrong!
EMILE ZOLA

Fear Fools School Teaching Wrong
She might have liked to try to strangle him with those slender fingers of hers, but she wanted to make a job of it and this great patience with which she waited for her claws to grow was in itself a form of enjoyment.
EMILE ZOLA

Death Enjoyment Fingers Job Strangle
Over all crowds there seems to float a vague distress, an atmosphere of pervasive melancholy, as if any large gathering of people creates an aura of terror and pity.
EMILE ZOLA

Creation Distress People Sadness
Inability, human incapacity, is the only boundary to an art.
EMILE ZOLA

Art Boundary Human Incapacity Limitation
In love as in speculation there is much filth; in love also, people think only of their own gratification; yet without love there would be no life, and the world would come to an end.
EMILE ZOLA

End Gratitude Life Love People Thinking World
When sometimes, behind his back, they called him a tyrant, he merely smiled and uttered this profound observation: If some day I turn liberal, they will say I have let them down.
EMILE ZOLA

Liberal Myself Observation Smile Time
It all seemed a hollow sham now – that strict code, that conscientious virtue that condemned her to the sterile joys of pious women! No, no, she’d had enough of that; she wanted to live!
EMILE ZOLA

Enough Happiness Hollow Joy Live Strict Virtue Woman
If I cannot overwhelm with my quality, I will overwhelm with my quantity.
EMILE ZOLA

Impress Myself Quality Quantity
Classical education has deformed everything, and has imposed upon us as geniuses men of correct, facile talent, who follow the beaten track.
EMILE ZOLA

Class Correct Education Genius Talent Track
Governments are suspicious of literature because it is a force that eludes them.
EMILE ZOLA

Force Government Literature
A ruined man fell from her hands like a ripe fruit, to lie rotting on the ground.
EMILE ZOLA

Fruit Hands Lying Man Ruin

The past was but the cemetery of our illusions: one simply stubbed one’s toes on the gravestones.

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The past was but the cemetery of our illusions: one simply stubbed one’s toes on the gravestones.

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