Only the earth is immortal, the Great Mother from whom we spring and to whom we return, love of whom can drive us to crime and through whom life is perpetually preserved for her own inscrutable ends, in which even our wretched degraded nature has its part to play.

Another quote →

More quotes by Émile Zola

All Émile Zola quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Émile Zola (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.