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I defy you to find any real will, any reasoning force, outside of life. And everything is there; there is, in the world, no other will than this force which impels everything to life, a life even broader and higher.
Emile Zola
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote emphasizes that true will and reasoning are intrinsically tied to life itself.

Emile Zola conveys that the driving force behind all existence and reason stems from the essence of life. He suggests that beyond the vitality that permeates living beings, no other external force can truly embody will or reasoning; rather, they are inherently linked to the broader and higher dimensions of life itself.

Themes

LifeWillReasoningForceExistence

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be shared during a philosophical discussion about the nature of existence.

More from Emile Zola

Blow the candle out, I don't need to see what my thoughts look like.
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I believe that all is illusion and vanity outside the treasure of truths slowly accumulated, and which will never again be lost. I believe that the sum of these truths, always increasing, will at last confer on man incalculable power and peace, if not happiness. Yes, I believe in the final triumph of life.
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A ruined man fell from her hands like a ripe fruit, to lie rotting on the ground.
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Oh, the fools, like a lot of good little schoolboys, scared to death of anything they've been taught is wrong!
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Did not one spend the first half of one's days in dreams of happiness and the second half in regrets and terrors?
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They dared not peer down into their own natures, down into the feverish confusion that filled their minds with a kind of dense, acrid mist.
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Quote by Emile Zola | QuoteProject