45 Jack London Quotes about Living Life
Jack London (born January 12, 1876, San Francisco, California, U.S. – died November 22, 1916, Glen Ellen, California, U.S.), pseudonym of John Griffith Chaney, was an American novelist, journalist, and social activist.
London was a prolific writer, producing short stories, novels, and essays. Most famous for the adventure novels The Call of the Wild and White Fang, his other notable works include The People of the Abyss (1903), The Sea-Wolf (1904), The Iron Heel (1908), Martin Eden (1909), and Burning Daylight (1910).
In addition to writing, London was a vocal advocate of animal rights, workers’ rights, and socialism. As a member of the Socialist Party of America, he ran for mayor of Oakland in 1901.
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's Credo, The Bulletin, San Francisco, California (December 2, 1916)
Don’t loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club.Getting Into Print (The Editor Magazine, 1903)
One cannot violate the promptings of one’s nature without having that nature recoil upon itself.White Fang (1906), Part IV. The Superior Gods, Chapter I. The Enemy of his Kind, Page 188
Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, was the law; and this mandate, down out of the depths of Time.The Call of the Wild (1903), Chapter VI. For the Love of a Man, Page 167
Intelligent men are cruel. Stupid men are monstrously cruel.The Star Rover (1915), Chapter II, Page 10
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.The Road (1907), Chapter I. Confession, Page 5
Life achieves its summit when it does to the uttermost that which it was equipped to do.White Fang (1906), Part II. Born of the Wild, Chapter IV. The Wall of the World, Page 93
Age is never so old as youth would measure it.Lost Face (1910), Story VII. The Wit of Porportuk, Page 235
As one grows weaker one is less susceptible to suffering. There is less hurt because there is less to hurt.The Star Rover (1915), Chapter VIII, Page 62
A man with a club was a lawgiver.The Call of the Wild (1903), Chapter I. Into the Primitive, Page 33
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.White Fang (1906), Part II. Born of the Wild, Chapter V. The Law of Meat, Page 107
I am I, and I won’t subordinate my taste to the unanimous judgment of mankind.Martin Eden (1909), Chapter XXIV, Page 206
Too much is written by the men who can’t write about the men who do write.Martin Eden (1909), Chapter XXXII, Page 285
Socialism, when the last word is said, is merely a new economic and political system whereby more men can get food to eat.The Human Drift (1917), Page 19
The game of life is good, though all of life may be hurt, and though all lives lose the game in the end.John Barleycorn (1913), Chapter XXXV, Page 306
The desire is a pain which seeks easement through possession.The Kempton-Wace Letters (1903), Chapter XX. From Herbert Wace to Dane Kempton, Page 142
Love is the sum of all the arts, as it is the reason for their existence.The Valley of the Moon (1913), Book II, Chapter III, Page 143
The law is a lie, and through it men lie most shamelessly.The People of the Abyss (1903), Chapter XXII. Suicide, Page 267
If cash comes with fame, come fame; if cash comes without fame, come cash.Letter to Cloudesley Johns (November 21, 1899)
Do you know the only value life has is what life puts on itself?The Sea-Wolf (1904), Chapter VI, Page 69
Why, if there is anything in supply and demand, life is the cheapest thing in the world.The Sea-Wolf (1904), Chapter VI, Page 68
Truth is not merely the best policy. It is the only policy.Letter to Joan London (September 5, 1913)
Only the unsatisfied do things. The satisfied do nothing. Unsatisfaction is the stimulus to achievement. Satisfaction is destruction and leads down to the chamber of death.
The men who act without thinking, and the men who both think and act, are the ones who mould the world. The man who thinks and does not act never moulds the world.Letter to Philo M. Buck, Jr. (July 19, 1913)
The greatest of the arts is the conquering of men.The Valley of the Moon (1913), Book II, Chapter III, Page 143
There’s only one way to make a beginning, and that is to begin; and begin with hard work, and patience, prepared for all the disappointments.Letter to Max E. Feckler (October 26, 1914)
To be afraid is to be healthy. Fear of death makes for life.John Barleycorn (1913), Chapter XXXVI, Page 314
Humor is the hardest to write, easiest to sell, and best rewarded.Getting Into Print (The Editor Magazine, 1903)
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!Speech to a gathering of wealthy New Yorkers during his unsuccessful mayoral campaign (1900)
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.The Kempton-Wace Letters (1903), Chapter XX. From Herbert Wace to Dane Kempton, Page 142
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.Letter to Lieutenant James D. Willson (August 5, 1916)
Life is a strange thing. Why this longing for life? It is a game which no man wins. To live is to toil hard and to suffer sore, till old age creeps heavily upon us and we throw down our hands on the cold ashes of dead fires. It is hard to live. In pain the babe sucks his first breath, in pain the old man gasps his last, and all his days are full of trouble and sorrow; yet he goes down to the open arms of death, stumbling, falling, with head turned backward, fighting to the last. And death is kind. It is only life and the things of life that hurt. Yet we love life and we hate death. It is very strange.Grit of Women (August 1900)
The Wild still lingered in him and the wolf in him merely slept.White Fang (1906), Part V. The Tame, Chapter IV. The Call of Kind, Page 305
He was mastered by the sheer surging of life, the tidal wave of being, the perfect joy of each separate muscle, joint, and sinew in that it was everything that was not death, that it was aglow and rampant, expressing itself in movement, flying exultantly under the stars.The Call of the Wild (1903), Chapter III. The Dominant Primordial Beast, Page 91
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.The Call of the Wild (1903), Chapter III. The Dominant Primordial Beast, Page 91
A man without courage is to me the most despicable thing under the sun, a travesty on the whole scheme of creation.Letter to Cloudesley Johns (April 30, 1899)
White Fang knew the law well: to oppress the weak and obey the strong.White Fang (1906), Part III. The Gods of the Wild, Chapter V. The Covenant, Page 163
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Misattributed
Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.Josh Billings (More info)