Jack London quotes - page 4

Much of this he strove to express to Ruth, and shocked her and made it clear that more remodelling was necessary. Hers was that common insularity of mind that makes human creatures believe that their color, creed, and politics are best and right and that other human creatures scattered over the world are less fortunately placed than they. It was the same insularity of mind that made the ancient Jew thank God he was not born a woman, and sent the modern missionary god-substituting to the ends of the earth; and it made Ruth desire to shape this man from other crannies of life into the likeness of the men who lived in her particular cranny of life. (Jack London)
The great driving force of the oligarchs is the belief that they are doing right. View quote
Jack London
Wolf - tis what he is. He's not blackhearted like some men. 'Tis no heart he has at all. Wolf. just Wolf, tis what he is. D'ye wonder he's well named? View quote
Jack London
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 your belly. View quote
Jack London
The aim of life was meat. Life itself was meat. Life lived on life. There were the eaters and the eaten. The law was: EAT OR BE EATEN. He did not formulate the law in clear, set terms and moralise about it. He did not even think the law; he merely lived the law without thinking about it at all. View quote
Jack London
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 was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness – a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild. View quote
Jack London
...In his gambling, he had one besetting weakness-faith in a system; and this made his damnation certain. For to play a system requires money... View quote
Jack London
Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, was the law; and this mandate, down out of the depths of Time, he obeyed. View quote
Jack London
No, sir. Go to hell sir. It's the best I can do for you sir. View quote
Jack London
Life is so short. I would rather sing one song than interpret the thousand. View quote
Jack London
He was a man without a past, whose future was the imminent grave and whose present was a bitter fever of living. (Jack London)
Don't loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club. View quote
Jack London
San Francisco is gone. Nothing remains of it but memories. View quote
Jack London
The scab is a traitor to his God, his mother, and his class. View quote
Jack London
Affluence means influence. View quote
Jack London
If cash comes with fame, come fame; if cash comes without fame, come cash. View quote
Jack London
Love seems to have no place in your Cosmos; in mine, Beauty is the handmaiden of Love. View quote
Jack London
This is undoubtedly your calf love; but for Beauty's sake show better taste next time. View quote
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. This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of living, comes to the artist, caught up and out of himself in a sheet of flame; it comes to the soldier, war-mad on a stricken field and refusing quarter... View quote
Jack London