Jack London quotes

Limited minds can recognize limitations only in others. (Jack London)
Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.
Jack London
You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
Jack London
The function of man is to live, not to exist.
Jack London
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 function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.
Jack London
I do not live for what the world thinks of me, but for what I think of myself.
Jack London
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
Life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.
Jack London
Show me a man with a tattoo and I'll show you a man with an interesting past.
Jack London
But I am I. And I won't subordinate my taste to the unanimous judgment of mankind.
Jack London
I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. (Jack London)
Life achieves its summit when it does to the uttermost that which it was equipped to do.
Jack London
One cannot violate the promptings of one's nature without having that nature recoil upon itself.
Jack London
...men, groping in the Arctic darkness, had found a yellow metal, and because steamship and transportation companies were booming the find, thousands of men were rushing into the Northland. These men wanted dogs, and the dogs they wanted were heavy dogs, with strong muscles by which to toil, and furry coats to protect them from the frost.
Jack London
Then one can't make a living out of poetry? Certainly not. What fool expects to? Out of rhyming, yes.
Jack London
There are, broadly speaking, two types of drinkers. There is the man whom we all know, stupid, unimaginative, whose brain is bitten numbly by numb maggots; who walks generously with wide-spread, tentative legs, falls frequently in the gutter, and who sees, in the extremity of his ecstasy, blue mice and pink elephants.... The other type of drinker has imagination, vision. Even when most pleasantly jingled he walks straight and naturally, never staggers nor falls, and knows just where he is and what he is doing. It is not his body but his brain that is drunken.
Jack London
I love the flesh. I'm a pagan. "Who are they who speak evil of the clay? The very stars are made of clay like mine!”.
Jack London
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
Age is never so old as youth would measure it.
Jack London
He was a killer, a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided, alone, by virtue of his own strength and prowess, surviving triumphantly in a hostile environment where only the strong survive.
Jack London
A man with a club [bat] is a law-maker, a man to be obeyed, but not necessarily conciliated. (Jack London)
The fortunate man is the one who cannot take more than a couple of drinks without becoming intoxicated. The unfortunate wight is the one who can take many glasses without betraying a sign; who must take numerous glasses in order to get the kick.
Jack London
Do you know the only value life has is what life puts upon itself? And it is of course overestimated, for it is of necessity prejudiced in its own favour. Take that man I had aloft. He held on as if he were a precious thing, a treasure beyond diamonds of rubies. To you? No. To me? Not at all. To himself? Yes. But I do not accept his estimate. He sadly overrates himself. There is plenty more life demanding to be born. Had he fallen and dripped his brains upon the deck like honey from the comb, there would have been no loss to the world. The supply is too large.
Jack London
I was five years old the first time I got drunk.
Jack London
There are things greater than our wisdom, beyond our justice. The right and wrong of this we cannot say, and it is not for us to judge.
Jack London