Blow the candle out, I don't need to see what my thoughts look like.
Emile ZolaRead
If something's just, I'll let myself be hacked to bits for it.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of fighting for justice, even at great personal cost.
Emile Zola's quote reflects a profound commitment to justice and the readiness to endure severe consequences for the principles of fairness and morality. By stating he would 'let myself be hacked to bits,' Zola powerfully conveys the idea that true justice may require significant sacrifice, reflecting a courageous stand against wrongdoing, even when it poses a personal risk. This dedication highlights the moral responsibility individuals have to advocate for what is right, regardless of the potential fallout.
In practice
During a speech at a protest rally advocating for equality.
Blow the candle out, I don't need to see what my thoughts look like.
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.
A ruined man fell from her hands like a ripe fruit, to lie rotting on the ground.
Oh, the fools, like a lot of good little schoolboys, scared to death of anything they've been taught is wrong!
Did not one spend the first half of one's days in dreams of happiness and the second half in regrets and terrors?
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.
A lot of people refuse to do things because they don't want to go naked, don't want to go without guarantee. But that's what's got to happen. You go naked until you die.
How shall freedom be defended? By arms when it is attacked by arms, by truth when it is attacked by lies, by faith when it is attacked by authoritarian dogma. Always, in the final act, by determination and faith.
If you would endeavor, like men of courage, to stand in the battle, surely we would feel the favorable assistance of God from heaven. For he who give the us occasion to fight, to the end we may get the victory, is ready to succor those that fight manfully, and do trust in his grace.
His whole body shakes with the strain as he tries to lift something he knows he can't lift, something everybody knows he can't lift. But, for just a second, when we hear the cement grind at our feet, we think, by golly, he might do it.
To conquer the command in the air means victory; to be beaten in the air means defeat.
I had good care going. I had Meredith and the family. And I didn't want to become the object of some kind of pity, most of all. I didn't want to show up on the Internet, 'Tom Brokaw has cancer.'
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