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Jack London

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Famous Jack London Quotes

“A good soldier is a blind, heartless, soulless, murderous machine. He is not a man. His is not a brute, for brutes kill only in self defense. All that is human in him, all that is divine in him, all that constitutes the man has been sworn away when he took the enlistment roll. His mind, his conscience, aye, his very soul, are in the keeping of his officer. No man can fall lower than a soldier-it is a depth beneath which we cannot go.”

MenMindHumansHas BeensWarSoulSelfFallDivineHe ManConscienceMachinesBlindDepthSoldierDefenseOfficersAnti WarBrutesSelf DefenseHeartlessSoullessGood Soldiers
Author:Jack London
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“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.”

KnowsMenTwoBodyFallImaginationWalksBrainVisionStupidHe ManTypeBlueLegsSpreadWideEcstasyMiceElephantsNumbDrinkersGuttersExtremityMaggots
Author:Jack London
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“Stupid women, and all are stupid, think the first winning of the man the final victory. Then they settle down and grow fat, and stale, and dead, and heartbroken. Alas, they are so stupid. But you, little infant-woman with your first victory, you must make your love-life an unending chain of victories. Each day you must win your man again. And when you have won the last victory, when you can find no more to win, then ends love. Finis is written, and your man wanders in strange gardens.”

ThinkingMenFirstsLittlesEndsLastsWinningGrowsWrittenStupidStrangeHe ManVictoryGardenDown AndFinalsFatsWanderChainsSettlingEach DayLove LifeAlasInfantHeartbrokenStaleSettling DownUnending
Book:The Valley of the Moon: Classic American Literature
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“As for me, you wonder why I am a socialist. I'll tell you. It is because socialism is inevitable; because the present rotten and irrational system cannot endure; because the day is past for your man on horseback. The slaves won't stand for it. They are too many, and willy-nilly they'll drag down the would-be equestrian before he gets astride. You can't get away from them, and you'll have to swallow the whole slave-morality. It's not a nice mess, I'll allow. But it's been a-brewing and swallow it you must.”

MenWholeWould BePastWonderNiceMoralitySlaveEndureSocialismMessInevitableGet AwayDragSocialistIrrationalRottenBrewingHorsebackEquestrian
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Jack London (Illustrated)
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“The great task demanded of man is reproduction. He is urged by passion to perform this task. Passion, working through the imagination, produces love. Passion is the impelling factor, imagination the disturbing factor; and the disturbance of passion by imagination produces love.”

MenPassionImaginationProduceTasksFactorsDisturbingReproductionDisturbanceLove Passion
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Jack London (Illustrated)
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“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.”

MenLifeInspirationalTryingUseActionInspiringExistenceCreativeMankindTravelWasteFunctionLondonMy TimeTime ManagementAtomsWasting TimeMagnificentShort LifeSleepyFamous InspirationalWasted TimeSuperbBurn OutWasting My TimeStiflingTime Of My LifeWasted LifeMeteorsBurned OutWasting Your TimeBurnt OutLife Being ShortProlongingWasted My TimeNot Wasting TimeWasted Time In Life
Author:Jack London
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“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.”

MenLifeInspirationalShouldTryingCharacterUsePlanetsWasteAmbitionFunctionLondonBrilliantDustPermanentMy TimeDrySparksAtomsWasting TimeAshesMagnificentGlowingSleepyWasted TimeSuperbBlazingBurn OutRottingDon't Waste Your TimeStiflingTime Of My LifeWasted LifeMeteorsBurned OutBurnt OutProlonging
Author:Jack London
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“...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.”

MenWantedFoundStrongCompanyDarknessDogProtectHeavyMusclesYellowMetalsCoatsToilTransportationRushingFrostArcticFurry
Book:Klondike Two Pack: The Call of the Wild and White Fang
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“But especially he loved to run in the dim twilight of the summer midnights, listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs of the forest, reading signs and sounds as a man may read a book, and seeking for the mysterious something that called -- called, waking or sleeping, at all times, for him to come.”

MenMayBookRunningReadingSoundSleepListeningSummerSeekingForestsMysteriousAll TimeWakingTwilightMidnightSleepy
Book:The Call of the Wild and White Fang
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“On the sled, in the box, lay a third man whose toil was over, - a man whom the Wild had conquered and beaten down until he would never move nor struggle again. It is not the way of the Wild to like movement. Life is an offense to it, for life is movement; and the Wild aims always to destroy movement.”

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Book:The Call of the Wild, White Fang & To Build a Fire: (A Modern Library E-Book)
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“But it did not all happen in a day, this giving over of himself, body and soul, to the man-animals. He could not immediately forego his wild heritage and his memories of the Wild. There were days when he crept to the edge of the forest and stood and listened to something calling him far and away.”

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Book:Klondike Two Pack: The Call of the Wild and White Fang
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“The hand descended. Nearer and nearer it came. It touched the ends of his upstanding hair. He shrank down under it. It followed down after him, pressing more closely against him. Shrinking, almost shivering. He still managed to hold himself together. It was a torment, this hand that touched him and violated his instinct. He could not forget in a day all the evil that had been wrought him at the hands of men.”

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Book:White Fang (Arcadia Classics)
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“You have grudged the very fire in your house because the wood cost overmuch!" he cried. "You have grudged life. To live cost overmuch, and you have refused to pay the price. Your life has been like a cabin where the fire is out and there are no blankets on the floor." He signaled to a slave to fill his glass, which he held aloft. "But I have lived. And I have been warm with life as you have never been warm. It is true, you shall live long. But the longest nights are the cold nights when a man shivers and lies awake. My nights have been short, but I have slept warm”

MenLongHas BeensLyingNightHousePayFireColdCostSlaveGlassesWoodsWarmAwakeCriedBlanketPay The PriceShiverTrue YouCabinsCold Night
Book:Jack London: The Complete Novels [Classics Authors Vol: 6] (Black Horse Classics)
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“Had the cub thought in man-fashion, he might have epitomized life as a voracious appetite, and the world as a place wherein ranged a multitude of appetites, pursuing and being pursued, hunting and being hunted, eating and being eaten, all in blindness and confusion, with violence and disorder, a chaos of gluttony and slaughter, ruled over by chance, merciless, planless, endless.”

MenWorldMightChanceViolenceFashionEatingChaosEndlessConfusionDisorderAppetiteHuntingMultitudesBlindnessPursuedSlaughterGluttonyHuntedCubs
Book:White Fang
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“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.”

IfsKnowsMenWorldHas BeensValuesCoursesBornLossBrainAcceptingTreasurePlentyFallenDo You KnowHoneyDiamondFavourDeckPrecious ThingsRubiesCombs
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Jack London (Illustrated)
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“The trouble with him was that he was without imagination. He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances. Fifty degrees below zero meant eighty-odd degrees of frost. Such fact impressed him as being cold and uncomfortable, and that was all. It did not lead him to meditate upon his frailty as a creature of temperature, and upon man's frailty in general, able only to live within certain narrow limits of heat and cold; and from there on it did not lead him to the conjectural field of immortality and man's place in the universe.”

MenFactsAbleCertainUniverseImaginationTroubleFieldsColdCreaturesLimitsDegreesOddImmortalityUncomfortableHeatFiftySignificanceZeroImpressedEightyTemperatureFrostFrailtyHeat And Cold
Book:To Build a Fire
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“[Speaking to a group of wealthy New Yorkers] 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.”

MenWorldYearsMeanChildrenBodyHandsRaceBrainMillionsTakenWifeGroupsModernAmountCapacityYears AgoToolsProductionsBreadSecureProductiveWealthySurvivedCavesNew YorkersMultiplying
Author:Jack London
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