{ "type": "quote", "site": { "name": "Leafy Quotes", "language": "en", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com" }, "formats": "Every page has two versions with the same data: JSON (the page address + .json) and markdown (the page address + .md). Append .json or .md to any `url` in this document.", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emile-zola/germinal/they-spoke-one", "json": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emile-zola/germinal/they-spoke-one.json", "markdown": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emile-zola/germinal/they-spoke-one.md", "id": "8fd2348a-90a3-4517-b226-7230aa295808", "slug": "they-spoke-one", "text": "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.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Emile Zola", "slug": "emile-zola", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emile-zola" }, "book": { "title": "Germinal", "slug": "germinal", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emile-zola/germinal" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "politics", "slug": "politics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/politics" }, { "name": "society", "slug": "society", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/society" }, { "name": "justice", "slug": "justice", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/justice" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/%C3%89mile_Zola#Germinal_(1885)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:11", "more_from_book": [ { "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.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "work", "slug": "work", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/work" }, { "name": "society", "slug": "society", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/society" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/%C3%89mile_Zola#Germinal_(1885)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:11" }, { "id": "dfd2a09a-2bce-4c75-8502-2bc1c56bfd57", "slug": "if-people-can", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emile-zola/germinal/if-people-can", "text": "If people can just love each other a little bit, they can be so happy.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "love", "slug": "love", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/love" }, { "name": "happiness", "slug": "happiness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/happiness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/%C3%89mile_Zola#Germinal_(1885)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:11" }, { "id": "cfb1c416-c6d8-4625-8cb2-cf85b224c564", "slug": "what-idiot-imagined", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emile-zola/germinal/what-idiot-imagined", "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.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "happiness", "slug": "happiness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/happiness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/%C3%89mile_Zola#Germinal_(1885)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:11" } ] }