There were men so ambitious that they would wipe the masters' behinds to hear them say thank you. — Emile Zola
There were men so ambitious that they would wipe the masters' behinds to hear them say thank you.
Il y avait des hommes si ambitieux qu'ils auraient torché les chefs, pour les entendre seulement dire merci.
Source: Wikiquote · CC BY-SA 4.0
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Yes, that is your idea, all of you French workmen; you want to unearth a treasure in order to devour it alone afterwards in some lazy, selfish corner. You may cry out as much as you like against the rich, you haven't got courage enough to give back to the poor the money that luck brings you. You will never be worthy of happiness as long as you own anything, and your hatred of the bourgeois proceeds solely from an angry desire to be bourgeois yourselves in their place.
"Bread! is that enough, idiots!"
For half an hour the shaft went on devouring in this fashion, with more or less greedy gulps, according to the depth of the level to which the men went down, but without stopping, always hungry, with its giant intestines capable of digesting a nation.

