{
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  "slug": "and-then-if-only",
  "text": "\"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.",
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    "title": "Germinal",
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      "id": "ec2a913f-9e67-46d2-a4ff-6caef40cd093",
      "slug": "they-poor-devils",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emile-zola/germinal/they-poor-devils",
      "text": "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.",
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      "slug": "if-people-can",
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      "text": "If people can just love each other a little bit, they can be so happy.",
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      "id": "cfb1c416-c6d8-4625-8cb2-cf85b224c564",
      "slug": "what-idiot-imagined",
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      "text": "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 so doing add one single joy to man’s lot, nor relieve him of a single pain merely by sharing out 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 the unsatisfied yearnings of passion.",
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