Jack London Quotes

95 quotes in 1484 categories

• You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
• 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…
• Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.
• 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.
• I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.
• If cash comes with fame, come fame; if cash comes without fame, come cash.
• Darn the wheel of the world! Why must it continually turn over? Where is the reverse gear?
• 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…
• Life is so short. I would rather sing one song than interpret the thousand.
• San Francisco is gone. Nothing remains of it but memories.
• 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…
• A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it…
• You stand on dead men's legs. You've never had any of your own. You couldn't walk alone between two sunrises and hustle the meat for…
• 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…
• And how have I lived? Frankly and openly, though crudely. I have not been afraid of life. I have not shrunk from it. I have…
• Show me a man with a tattoo and I'll show you a man with an interesting past.
• The first theft marked Buck as fit to survive in the hostile Northland environment. It marked his adaptability, his capacity to adjust himself to changing…
• A man with a club [bat] is a law-maker, a man to be obeyed, but not necessarily conciliated.
• He had learned well the law of club and fang, and he never forewent an advantage or drew back from a foe he had started…
• But under it all they were men, penetrating the land of desolation and mockery and silence, puny adventurers bent on colossal adventure, pitting themselves against…

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