“The effect of civilization is to impose human law upon environment until it becomes machine-like in its regularity. The objectionable is eliminated, the inevitable is foreseen. One is not even made wet by the rain nor cold by the frost; while death, instead of stalking about gruesome and accidental, becomes a prearranged pageant, moving along a well-oiled groove to the family vault, where the hinges are kept from rusting and the dust from the air is swept continually away.”
Source: Love of life and Other Stories by Jack London
“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.”
Source: The Valley of the Moon: Classic American Literature
“In a saturated population life is always cheap.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Jack London (Illustrated)
“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.”
Source: Jack London Complete Collection Northern Tales (annotated)
“Man is man because he chanced to develop intelligence instead of instinct; otherwise he would to this day have remained among the anthropoid apes. He has turned away from nature, become unnatural, as it were, disliked the earth upon which he found himself, and changed the face of it somewhat to his liking.”
Source: The Kempton-Wase Letters
“Our ape-like and arboreal ancestors entered upon the first of many short cuts. To crack a marrow-bone with a rock was the act which fathered the tool, and between the cracking of a marrow-bone and the riding down town in an automobile lies only a difference of degree.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Jack London (Illustrated)
“Mercy did not exist in the primordial life. It was misunderstood for fear, and such misunderstandings made for death.”
Source: Jack London Six Pack
“The greatest of the arts is the conquering of men.”
Source: The Valley of the Moon: Classic American Literature
“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.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Jack London (Illustrated)
“Love cannot in its very nature be peaceful or content. It is a restlessness, an unsatisfaction. I can grant a lasting love just as I can grant a lasting unsatisfaction; but the lasting love cannot be coupled with possession, for love is pain and desire and possession is easement and fulfilment.”
Source: The Complete Novels of Jack London – 22 Adventure Classics in One Volume (Illustrated): The Call of the Wild, The Sea-Wolf, White Fang, The Iron Heel, Martin Eden, Burning Daylight, The Scarlet Plague, A Son of the Sun, The Valley of the Moon, The Star Rover, Hearts of Three…
