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  "text": "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.",
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  "author": {
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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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      "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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