Émile Zola

"If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud."

"I am little concerned with beauty or perfection. I don't care for the great centuries. All I care about is life, struggle, intensity. I am at ease in my generation."

"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."

"Dreyfus is innocent. I swear it! I stake my life on it — my honor! At this solemn moment, in the presence of this tribunal which is the representative of human justice, before you, gentlemen of the ju…"

"Paris flared — Paris, which the divine sun had sown with light, and where in glory waved the great future harvest of Truth and of Justice."

"I would like to point out how this travesty was made possible, how it sprang out of the machinations of Major du Paty de Clam, how Generals Mercier, de Boisdeffre and Gonse became so ensnared in this …"

"If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, I will answer you: I am here to live out loud!"

"Existence is so bitter for every one of us! Ought we not forgive others much, my friend, if we wish to be forgiven ourselves?"