Emile Zola
Selling beauty is something I can understand. Even selling false beauty seems perfectly natural; it's a sign of progress.Collection: Beauty
The truth is on the march and nothing will stop it.Collection: Inspirational
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.Collection: Science
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.Collection: Fear
The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.Collection: Art
The fate of animals is of greater importance to me than the fear of appearing ridiculous; it is indissolubly connected with the fate of men.Collection: Fear
Up to this day, there has been no proof of the existence of any intelligence other than the human.Collection: Intelligence
I am little concerned with beauty or perfection. I don't care for the great centuries. All I care about is life, struggle, intensity.Collection: Beauty
If you ask me what I came into this life to do, I will tell you: I came to live out loud.Collection: Motivational
Keep well; that is the half of wisdom and of happiness.Collection: Wisdom
If you shut up truth, and bury it underground, it will but grow.Collection: Truth
I am an artist... I am here to live out loud.Collection: 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.
One forges one's style on the terrible anvil of daily deadlines.
One must be arrogant, indeed, to imagine that one can take everything in one's hand and know everything!
In my view you cannot claim to have seen something until you have photographed it.
If I cannot overwhelm with my quality, I will overwhelm with my quantity.
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.
There are two men inside the artist, the poet and the craftsman. One is born a poet. One becomes a craftsman.
When people have not the same ideas, it is certainly better not to talk about them.
In Paris, everything's for sale: wise virgins, foolish virgins, truth and lies, tears and smiles.
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.
Perfection is such a nuisance that I often regret having cured myself of using tobacco.
The thought is a deed. Of all deeds she fertilizes the world most.
I believe that all is illusion and vanity outside the treasure of truths slowly accumulated, and which will never again be lost. I believe that the sum of these truths, always increasing, will at last confer on man incalculable power and peace, if not happiness. Yes, I believe in the final triumph of life.
If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way.Collection: Inspiring
I would rather die of passion than of boredom.Collection: Inspirational
The only basis for living is believing in life, loving it, and applying the whole force of one's intellect to know it better.Collection: Art
Civilization will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest.Collection: Atheist
Did science promise happiness? I do not believe it. It promised truth, and the question is to know if we will ever make happiness with truth.Collection: Believe
Truth is on the march, and nothing will stop it.Collection: Inspirational
Man's highest duty is to protect animals from cruelty.Collection: Animal
It is not I who am strong, it is reason, it is truth.Collection: Strong
If people can just love each other a little bit, they can be so happy.Collection: People
I have but one passion: to enlighten those who have been kept in the dark, in the name of humanity which has suffered so much and is entitled to happiness. My fiery protest is simply the cry of my very soul.Collection: Passion
Governments are suspicious of literature because it is a force that eludes them.Collection: Government
Don't go looking at me like that because you'll wear your eyes out.Collection: Eye
Everything is only a dream.Collection: Dream
These young people naturally grow up with ideas different from ours, for they are born for times when we shall no longer be hereCollection: Growing Up
I am spending delightful afternoons in my garden, watching everything living around me. As I grow older, I feel everything departing, and I love everything with more passion.Collection: Death
Classical education has deformed everything, and has imposed upon us as geniuses men of correct, facile talent, who follow the beaten track.Collection: Education
Since the same human mire remains beneath, does not all civilization reduce itself to the superiority of smelling nice and living well?Collection: Nice
Respectable people... What bastards!Collection: People
Violence has never prospered, you can't remake the world in a day. Anyone who promises to change everything for you all at once is either a fool or a rogue!Collection: Promise
Lovers are made by a kiss.Collection: Kissing
The conclusion does not belong to the artist.Collection: Artist
When truth is buried, it grows. It chokes. It gathers such an explosive force that on the day it bursts out, it blows up everything with it.Collection: Blow
A god of kindness would be charitable to all. Your god of wrath and punishment is but a monstrous phantasy.Collection: Kindness
Did not one spend the first half of one's days in dreams of happiness and the second half in regrets and terrors?Collection: Dream
Blow the candle out, I don't need to see what my thoughts look like.Collection: Blow