Germinal Quotes
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GerminalGerminal by Émile Zola
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Germinal Quotes Showing 1-30 of 44
“Blow the candle out, I don't need to see what my thoughts look like.”
― Emile Zola, Germinal
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“If people can just love each other a little bit, they can be so happy.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
tags: love122 likesLike
“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, Germinal
tags: bourgeois, heart, revolutionary25 likesLike
“Yes, it’s your idea, all of you French workers, to dig up a treasure, to then eat it alone, in a corner of selfishness and laziness. No matter how much you cry against the rich, you lack the courage to return to the poor the money that fortune sends you... You will never be worthy of happiness, as long as you have something of your own, and your hatred of the bourgeois will only come from your rabid need to be bourgeois in their place.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
tags: envy, happiness, poverty14 likesLike
“Men were springing up, a black avenging host was slowly germinating in the furrows, thrusting upward for the harvests of future ages. And very soon their germination would crack the earth asunder.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
tags: emile-zola, germinal, labourolution, revolution, socialism12 likesLike
“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 busting out of her breeches.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
tags: bestiality, lust, sex9 likesLike
“They were brutes, no doubt, but brutes who could not read, and who were dying of hunger.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
tags: hunger, strikes, violence9 likesLike
“It was the red vision of the revolution, which would one day inevitably carry them all away, on some bloody evening at the end of the century. Yes, some evening the people, unbridled at last, would thus gallop along the roads, making the blood of the middle class flow, parading severed heads and sprinkling gold from disembowelled coffers. The women would yell, the men would have those wolf-like jaws open to bite. Yes, the same rags, the same thunder of great sabots, the same terrible troop, with dirty skins and tainted breath, sweeping away the old world beneath an overflowing flood of barbarians.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
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“Who was the idiot who put the happiness of this world in the distribution of wealth?”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
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“He despised the speakers, the cunning people who enter politics like those who enter the law, to make money with rhetoric.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
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“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, Germinal
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“In the open plain, under the starless night, as dark and thick as ink, a man followed alone the main road from Marchiennes to Montsou, ten kilometers of cobblestone cutting straight through the fields of beets. In front of him, he did not even see the black ground, and he only had the sensation of the immense flat horizon through the blowing of the March wind, gusts as wide as on a sea, frozen from having swept leagues of marshes and bare lands. No shadow of a tree stained the sky, the pavement unfolded with the straightness of a pier, in the middle of the blinding spray of darkness.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
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“They spoke one after the other in a despairing voice, giving expression to their complaints. The workers could not hold out; the Revolution had only aggravated their wretchedness; only the bourgeois had grown fat since ‘89, so greedily that they had not even left the bottom of the plates to lick. Who could say that the workers had had their reasonable share in the extraordinary increase of wealth and comfort during the last hundred years? They had made fun of them by declaring them free. Yes, free to starve, a freedom of which they fully availed themselves. It put no bread into your cupboard to go and vote for fine fellows who went away and enjoyed themselves, thinking no more of the wretched voters than of their old boots. No! one way or another it would have to come to an end, either quietly by laws, by an understanding in good fellowship, or like savages by burning everything and devouring one another. Even if they never saw it, their children would certainly see it, for the century could not come to an end without another revolution, that of the workers this time, a general hustling which would cleanse society from top to bottom, and rebuild it with more cleanliness and justice.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
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“There were men so ambitious that they would have scolded the leaders, just to hear them say thank you.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
tags: ambition7 likesLike
“Set the cities on fire, destroy the nations, sweep away everything, and leave no trace in this rotten world; Maybe then a better world will emerge.”
― Emile Zola, Germinal
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“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, Germinal
tags: opening-line-of-the-novel, opening-lines, walking5 likesLike
“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, Germinal
tags: drink, drinking, fun4 likesLike
“No, the only good in life lay in not being - or, if one had to be, then in being a tree, a stone, or even less than that, the grain of sand that cannot bleed beneath the grinding heel of a passer-by.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
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“And still, again and again, even more distinctly than before, as if they had been working their way closer to the surface, the comrades tapped and tapped. Beneath the blazing rays of the sun, on this morning when the world seemed young, such was the stirring which the land carried in its womb. New men were starting into life, a black army of vengeance slowly germinating in the furrows, growing for the harvests of the century to come; and soon this germination would tear the earth apart.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
tags: comrades, organizing3 likesLike
“When a man was honest in his dealings, you could forgive him the rest.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
tags: honesty2 likesLike
“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 doing so add one single joy to man's lot, nor relieve him of a single pain by merely sharing 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 be have the unsatisfied yearnings of passion. 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, Germinal
tags: pessimism1 likesLike
“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 rather not 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, Germinal
tags: antinatalism, loneliness, slave-morality1 likesLike
“Was it not a cry of hunger that rolled with the March wind across these bare fields? The gusts of wind had increased and seemed to bring with them the death of labor, a shortage that would kill many men. And, with his eyes wandering from one point to another, he strove to pierce the shadows, tormented by the desire and fear of seeing.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
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“Definitely, she was charming. As soon as she finished eating, she would take her in her arms and kiss those thick, pink lips. It was the resolution of a shy man, a thought of violence that strangled his voice.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
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“Poor people are ground like fodder in machines, crammed like animals into narrow slums in workers' quarters, thanks to the slavery imposed by big enterprises, working people, millions of heads and arms, just so that a thousand exploiting slackers can live and add to their wealth like soldiers. It was operated and consumed slowly. But the miner's eyes were opened, he was no longer an ignorant man crushed under the ground. An army, a burgeoning army of citizens, would spring from the depths of the mines; Yes, the seed would germinate and pierce the ground on a sunny day. Then they would see what it meant to attempt to give a pension of one hundred and fifty francs to a sixty-year-old old man who coughed up coal and whose legs were stiff due to the humidity of the mine, after working for forty years! Yes! Labor would hold capitalism to account.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
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“At the coal-face the men had returned to work. They often cut their break-time short like this, so as not to get cold; but their meal, devoured with mute voracity far from the sunlight, sat like lead on their stomachs. Stretched out on their sides, they were now tapping away harder than ever in their single-minded determination to fill a decent number of tubs. They became oblivious to all else as they gave themselves up to this furious pursuit of a reward so dearly won. They ceased to notice the water streaming down and causing their limbs to swell, or the cramps brought on by being stuck in awkward positions, or the suffocating darkness that was making them go pale like vegetables in a cellar. As the day wore on, the atmosphere became even more poisonous and the air grew hotter and hotter with the fumes from their lamps, and the foulness of their breath, and the asphyxiating firedamp, which clung to their eyes like cobwebs and which would clear only when the mine was ventilated during the night. But despite it all, buried like moles beneath the crushing weight of the earth, and without a breath of fresh air in their burning lungs, they simply went on tapping.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
tags: hardship, noble, work0 likesLike
“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, Germinal
tags: pessimism0 likesLike
“he killed her with his caresses, after having beaten her.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
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“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, Germinal
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“Nobody even spoke now, for they were all stupified by the accmulation of woes-- granpa coughing and spitting black, with his old rheumatic complaint returning to dropsy, father asthmatical, his knees swollen up with water, mother and the children scarred by scrofula and hereditary anaemia. Of course all that was part of the job, and you didn't complain except when the lack of food finished you off.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
tags: illness, poverty, starvation0 likesLike
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Germinal Quotes Showing 31-44 of 44
“He would have given up everything -- education, comfort, luxurious life and his powerful position as manager -- if only just for one day he could have been the humblest of these poor devils under him and be free with his own body and be oafish enough to beat his wife and take his pleasure with the wives of his neighbors. He found himself wishing he were dying of starvation too, and that his empty belly were twisted with pains that made his brain reel, for perhaps that might deaden this relentless grief! Oh to live like a brute, possessing nothing but freedom to roam in the cornfields with the ugliest and most revolting haulage girl and possess her!”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
tags: repressed-emotions, sexual-frustration0 likesLike
“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, Germinal
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“Yes, all you French workers have that one idea: you want to dig up a treasure and live on it for evermore in selfish and lazy isolation. You make a great song against the rich, but when fortune give you some money you haven't the guts to give it back to the poor. You will never deserve to be happy so long as you have personal possessions, and your hatred of the bourgeois simply comes from your mad desire to be bourgeois yourselves in their place!”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
tags: bourgeois, poor, rich0 likesLike
“But now the miner was waking up under the ground, germinating in the earth like good seed, and one fine morning you would see him springing up like corn in the fields; yes, men would spring up, an army of men to bring justice back into the world.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
tags: miners, revolution0 likesLike
“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, Germinal
tags: capitalism, coal-miners0 likesLike
“Etienne now commanded a view of the whole district. It was still very dark, but the old man had peopled the darkness with untold sufferings, which the young one could sense all round him in the limitless space. Could he not hear a cry of famine borne over this bleak country by the March wind? The gale had lashed itself into a fury and seemed to be blowing death to all labour and a great hunger that would finish off men by the hundred. And with his roving eye he tried to peer through the gloom, with a tormenting desire to see and yet a fear of seeing. Everything slid away in the dark unknown, and all he could see was distant furnaces and coke-ovens which, set in batteries of a hundred chimneys arranged obliquely, made sloping lines of crimson flames; whilst further to the left the two blast-furnaces were burning blue in the sky like monstrous torches. It was as depressing to watch as a building on fire: as far as the threatening horizon the only stars which rose were the nocturnal fires of the land of coal and iron.”
― emile zola, Germinal
tags: coal-mining, desolation, misery0 likesLike
“Então era possível que uma pessoa se matasse num trabalho de escravo, no fundo dessas trevas horrendas, e nem sequer conseguisse ganhar os parcos tostões para o pão de cada dia?”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
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“— Je te devais soixante francs, te voilà payé, voleur ! dit la Maheude, enragée parmi les autres. Tu ne me refuseras plus crédit… Attends ! attends ! il faut que je t’engraisse encore.
De ses dix doigts, elle grattait la terre, elle en prit deux poignées, dont elle lui emplit la bouche, violemment.
— Tiens ! mange donc !… Tiens ! mange, mange, toi qui nous mangeais !
Les injures redoublèrent, pendant que le mort, étendu sur le dos, regardait, immobile, de ses grands yeux fixes, le ciel immense d’où tombait la nuit. Cette terre, tassée dans sa bouche, c’était le pain qu’il avait refusé. Et il ne mangerait plus que de ce pain-là, maintenant. Ça ne lui avait guère porté bonheur, d’affamer le pauvre monde.
Mais les femmes avaient à tirer de lui d’autres vengeances. Elles tournaient en le flairant, pareilles à des louves. Toutes cherchaient un outrage, une sauvagerie qui les soulageât.
On entendit la voix aigre de la Brûlé.
— Faut le couper comme un matou !
— Oui, oui ! au chat ! au chat !… Il en a trop fait, le salaud !
Déjà, la Mouquette le déculottait, tirait le pantalon, tandis que la Levaque soulevait les jambes. Et la Brûlé, de ses mains sèches de vieille, écarta les cuisses nues, empoigna cette virilité morte. Elle tenait tout, arrachant, dans un effort qui tendait sa maigre échine et faisait craquer ses grands bras. Les peaux molles résistaient, elle dut s’y reprendre, elle finit par emporter le lambeau, un paquet de chair velue et sanglante, qu’elle agita, avec un rire de triomphe :
— Je l’ai ! je l’ai !
Des voix aiguës saluèrent d’imprécations l’abominable trophée.
Ah ! bougre, tu n’empliras plus nos filles !
— Oui, c’est fini de te payer sur la bête, nous n’y passerons plus toutes, à tendre le derrière pour avoir un pain.
— Tiens ! je te dois six francs, veux-tu prendre un acompte ? moi, je veux bien, si tu peux encore !
Cette plaisanterie les secoua d’une gaieté terrible. Elles se montraient le lambeau sanglant, comme une bête mauvaise, dont chacune avait eu à souffrir, et qu’elles venaient d’écraser enfin, qu’elles voyaient là, inerte, en leur pouvoir. Elles crachaient dessus, elles avançaient leurs mâchoires, en répétant, dans un furieux éclat de mépris :
— Il ne peut plus ! il ne peut plus !… Ce n’est plus un homme qu’on va foutre dans la terre… Va donc pourrir, bon à rien !
La Brûlé, alors, planta tout le paquet au bout de son bâton ; et, le portant en l’air, le promenant ainsi qu’un drapeau, elle se lança sur la route, suivie de la débandade hurlante des femmes. Des gouttes de sang pleuvaient, cette chair lamentable pendait, comme un déchet de viande à l’étal d’un boucher. En haut, à la fenêtre, Mme Maigrat ne bougeait toujours pas ; mais sous la dernière lueur du couchant, les défauts brouillés des vitres déformaient sa face blanche, qui semblait rire. Battue, trahie à chaque heure, les épaules pliées du matin au soir sur un registre, peut-être riait-elle, quand la bande des femmes galopa, avec la bête mauvaise, la bête écrasée, au bout d’un bâton.
Cette mutilation affreuse s’était accomplie dans une horreur glacée.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
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“Homens brotavam, um exército negro, vingador, que germinava lentamente nos sulcos da terra, crescendo para as colheitas do século futuro, cuja germinação não tardaria em fazer rebentar a terra.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
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“Antagonism breeds extremism.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
tags: extremism0 likesLike
“The shelves had the melancholy emptiness and the false luxury of families where inferior meat is purchased, so as to be able to put flowers on the table.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
tags: germinal-zola0 likesLike
“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, Germinal
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“Perhaps it needed a lawyer, a man of learning capable of speaking and acting without endangering his comrades' cause? But he soon rejected the idea and recovered his poise. No, no, they didn't want lawyers!”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
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“Мора бити да је гвожђе на пречагама засецало њене ноге, јер јој се чинило да је тестеришу као до костију. После сваког хватања очекивала је да ће руке испустити греде дуж лествица; руке су јој биле толико огуљене и укочене да није могла да савија прсте. Мислила је да ће се ишчупаних рамена и растављених удова преврнути услед непрестаног напора. Нарочито јој је сметао мали нагиб готово сасвим усправних лествица. Због тога је морала да се пење уместо песница, с трбухом приљубљеним уз дрво. Тешко дисање људи заглушивало је шум ногу. Страховити ропац, који се удесетостручио одбијајући се од преграде отвора, подизао се са дна и нестајао тек на површини земље. Чуло се јечање. Пренела се вест: неки шегрт је разбио лобању о ивицу одморишта.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal
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