JACK LONDON QUOTES
American author (1876-1916)
A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.
JACK LONDON
"My Life in the Underworld"
The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.
JACK LONDON
attributed, Jack London and His Times
He had no conscious knowledge of death, but like every animal of the Wild, he possessed the instinct of death. To him it stood as the greatest of hurts. It was the very essence of the unknown; it was the sum of the terrors of the unknown, the one culminating and unthinkable catastrophe that could happen to him, about which he knew nothing and about which he feared everything.
JACK LONDON
White Fang
Life achieves its summit when it does to the uttermost that which it was equipped to do.
JACK LONDON
White Fang
I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.
JACK LONDON
introduction, Jack London's Tales of Adventure
Intelligent men are cruel. Stupid men are monstrously cruel.
JACK LONDON
The Star Rover
I am I. And I won't subordinate my taste to the unanimous judgment of mankind.
JACK LONDON
Martin Eden
A million years ago, the cave man, without tools, with small brain, and with nothing but the strength of his body, managed to feed his wife and children, so that through him the race survived. You on the other hand, armed with all the modern means of production, multiplying the productive capacity of the cave man a million times -- you are incompetents and muddlers, you are unable to secure to millions even the paltry amount of bread that would sustain their physical life. You have mismanaged the world, and it shall be taken from you!
JACK LONDON
speech to a gathering of wealthy New Yorkers during his unsuccessful mayoral campaign, 1900
Limited minds can recognize limitations only in others.
JACK LONDON
Martin Eden
Socialism, when the last word is said, is merely a new economic and political system whereby more men can get food to eat.
JACK LONDON
The Human Drift
Age is never so old as youth would measure it.
JACK LONDON
"The Wit of Porportuk"
There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.
JACK LONDON
The Call of the Wild
Life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.
JACK LONDON
attributed, Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior
I do not live for what the world thinks of me, but for what I think of myself.
JACK LONDON
letter to Charles Warren Stoddard, August 21, 1903
The game of life is good, though all of life may be hurt, and though all lives lose the game in the end.
JACK LONDON
John Barleycorn
The word is too weak. There is no word in the language strong enough to describe my feelings.
JACK LONDON
The Star Rover
The aim of life was meat. Life itself was meat. Life lived on life. There were the eaters and the eaten.
JACK LONDON
White Fang
Man rarely places a proper valuation upon his womankind, at least not until deprived of them. He has no conception of the subtle atmosphere exhaled by the sex feminine, so long as he bathes in it; but let it be withdrawn, and an ever-growing void begins to manifest itself in his existence, and he becomes hungry, in a vague sort of way, for a something so indefinite that he cannot characterize it. If his comrades have no more experience than himself, they will shake their heads dubiously and dose him with strong physic. But the hunger will continue and become stronger; he will lose interest in the things of his everyday life and wax morbid; and one day, when the emptiness has become unbearable, a revelation will dawn upon him.
JACK LONDON
"The Son of the Wolf"
One cannot violate the promptings of one's nature without having that nature recoil upon itself.
JACK LONDON
White Fang
Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, was the law; and this mandate, down out of the depths of Time.
JACK LONDON
The Call of the Wild