Germinal Quotes

“Blow the candle out, I don't need to see what my thoughts look like.”
― Emile Zola, Germinal

“If people can just love each other a little bit, they can be so happy.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal

“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

“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

“Oui, c'est votre idée, à vous tous, les ouvriers français, déterrer un trésor, pour le manger seul ensuite, dans un coin d'égoïsme et de fainéantise. Vous avez beau crier contre les riches, le courage vous manque de rendre aux pauvres l'argent que la fortune vous envoie... Jamais vous ne serez dignes du bonheur, tant que vous aurez quelque chose à vous, et que votre haine des bourgeois viendra uniquement de votre besoin enragé d'être des bourgeois à leur place.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal

“They were brutes, no doubt, but brutes who could not read, and who were dying of hunger.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal

“Şehirlerin her tarafını tutuşturun, milletleri yok edin, her şeyi silip süpürün ve şu çürümüş dünyada hiçbir eser bırakmayın; belki o zaman ortaya daha iyi bir dünya çıkar.”
― Emile Zola, Germinal

“Quem era o idiota que punha a felicidade deste mundo na repartição da riqueza?”
― Émile Zola, Germinal

“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

“Dans la plaine rase, sous la nuit sans étoiles, d'une obscurité et d'une épaisseur d'encre, un homme suivait seul la grande route de Marchiennes à Montsou, dix kilomètres de pavé coupant tout droit, à travers les champs de betteraves. Devant lui, il ne voyait même pas le sol noir, et il n'avait la sensation de l'immense horizon plat que par les souffles du vent de mars, des rafales larges comme sur une mer, glacées d'avoir balayé des lieues de marais et de terres nues. Aucune ombre d'arbre ne tachait le ciel, le pavé se déroulait avec la rectitude d'une jetée, au milieu de l'embrun aveuglant des ténèbres.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal

“Desprezava os discursadores, os astutos que entram na política como quem entra na advocacia, para ganhar dinheiro com a retórica.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“Il y avait des hommes si ambitieux qu'ils auraient torché les chefs, pour les entendre seulement dire merci.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal

“When a man was honest in his dealings, you could forgive him the rest.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal

“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

“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

“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

“Zavallı insanlar makinelerde yem gibi öğütülüyor, işçi mahallelerindeki daracık izbelere hayvanlar gibi tıkılıyor, büyük işletmelerce kuralına uydurulan kölelik sayesinde, emekçi halk, milyonlarca kafa ve kol, sırf bin kadar sömürücü tembel, el bebek gül bebek yaşasın, servetlerine servet katabilsin diye, asker gibi çalıştırılıp yavaş yavaş tüketiliyordu. Ama madencinin gözü açılmıştı, toprağın dibinde ezilen cahil bir adam değildi artık. Madenocaklarının derinliklerinden bir ordu, filizlenmekte olan bir yurttaşlar ordusu fışkıracaktı; evet, tohum yeşerecek ve güneşli bir günde toprağı delip çıkacaktı. İşte o zaman, kırk yıl emek verdikten sonra öksürdükçe kömür tüküren, madenin rütubetiyle bacakları tutulmuş altmış yaşındaki bir ihtiyara, yüz elli frank emekli aylığı vermeye kalkışmak ne demekmiş göreceklerdi! Evet! Emek, kapitalizmden hesap soracaktı.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal

“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

“Decididamente, ela era encantadora. Assim que acabasse de comer, tomá-la-ia em seus braços e beijaria aqueles lábios grossos e róseos. Era a resolução de um tímido, um pensamento de violência que chegava a estrangular-lhe a voz.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal

“Não era um grito de fome que rolava com o vento de março através destes campos nus? As rajadas do vento haviam aumentado e pareciam trazer consigo a morte do trabalho, uma escassez que mataria muitos homens. E, com os olhos errando de um ponto a outro, ele se esforçava por furar as sombras, atormentado pelo desejo e pelo medo de ver.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal

“Ces songe-creux de révolutionnaires pouvaient bien démolir la société et en rebâtir une autre, ils n'ajouteraient pas une joie à l'humanité, ils ne lui retireraient pas une peine, en coupant à chacun sa tartine. Même, ils élargiraient le malheur de la terre, ils feraient un jour hurler jusqu'aux chiens de désespoir, lorsqu'ils les auraient sortis de la tranquille satisfaction des instincts, pour les hausser à la souffrance inassouvie des passions.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal

“Και, γύρω απ'τη σβησμένη μηχανή, κοντά σ'αυτό το κουρασμένο να ξερνάει κάρβουνο πηγάδι, ήταν σαν να 'παιρνε εκδίκηση η δημιουργία μ' αυτό τον ελεύθερο έρωτα, που, κάτω απ' το μαστίγωμα του ενστίκτου, φύτευε παιδιά στις κοιλιές τούτων των κοριτσιών, που δεν είχαν ακόμα προλάβει καλά καλά να γίνουν γυναίκες.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal

“Antagonism breeds extremism, and it was turning one into the zealous revolutionary and the other into an excessive advocate of caution, taking them beyond what they really thought and forcing them to adopt positions of which they then became prisoners.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal

“Nehmen Sie Ihre Riechfläschchen, meine Damen, der Schweiß des Volkes zieht vorüber«, sagte Negrel, der trotz seiner republikanischen Überzeugungen es liebte, vor den Damen den Pöbel zu verspotten.”
― Émile Zola, Germinal