Jack London
One cannot violate the promptings of one's nature without having that nature recoil upon itself.Collection: Nature
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.Collection: Space
You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.Collection: Motivational
Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.Collection: Good
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.Collection: Time
I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.Collection: Beauty
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.
Darn the wheel of the world! Why must it continually turn over? Where is the reverse gear?
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.
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.
Do you know the only value life has is what life puts on itself?
San Francisco is gone. Nothing remains of it but memories.
The scab is a traitor to his God, his mother, and his class.
Life is so short. I would rather sing one song than interpret the thousand.
Affluence means influence.
If cash comes with fame, come fame; if cash comes without fame, come cash.
The most beautiful stories always start with wreckage.Collection: Beautiful
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.Collection: Inspirational
I do not live for what the world thinks of me, but for what I think of myself.Collection: Thinking
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 disappointment s.Collection: Hard Work
Limited minds can recognize limitations only in others.Collection: Mind
Not all the monsters have fangs.Collection: Real
Fear urged him to go back, but growth drove him on.Collection: Growth
You look back and see how hard you worked and how poor you were, and how desperately anxious you were to succeed, and all you can remember is how happy you were.Collection: San Francisco
Intelligent men are cruel. Stupid men are monstrously cruel.Collection: Stupid
It is so much easier to live placidly and complacently. Of course, to live placidly and complacently is not to live at all.Collection: Easier
It's better to stand by someone's side than by yourselfCollection: Sides
Age is never so old as youth would measure it.Collection: Age
The function of man is to live, not to exist.Collection: Short Life
The Wild still lingered in him and the wolf in him merely slept.Collection: Stills
Show me a man with a tattoo and I'll show you a man with an interesting past.Collection: Tattoo
Mental or spiritual health, which is rationality, makes for progress, and the future demands greater and greater mental or spiritual health, greater and greater rationality. The brain must dominate and direct both the individual and society in the time to come, not the belly and the heart.Collection: Spiritual
Desire is a pain which seeks easement through possession.Collection: Pain
To be able to forget means sanity.Collection: Mean
Having no new companions, nothing remained for him but to read.Collection: Companion
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’.Collection: Couple
Man is a flux of states of consciousness, a flow of passing thoughts, each thought of self another self, a myriad thoughts, a myriad selves, a continual becoming but never being, a will-of-the-wisp flitting of ghosts in ghostland.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Life
I was jealous; therefore I loved.Collection: Jealous
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.Collection: Memories
But nobody else ever romped with White Fang. He did not permit it. He stood on his dignity, and when they attempted it, his warning snarl and bristling mane were anything but playful. That he allowed the master these liberties was no reason that he should be a common dog, loving here and loving there, everybody's property for a romp and good time. He loved with single heart and refused to cheapen himself or his love.Collection: Dog
Then one can't make a living out of poetry? Certainly not. What fool expects to? Out of rhyming, yes.Collection: Poetry
There is such a thing as anaesthesia of pain, engendered by pain too exquisite to be borne.Collection: Pain
For the pride of trace and trail was his, and sick unto death, he could not bear that another dog should do his work.Collection: Dog
He felt strangely numb. As though from a great distance, he was aware that he was being beaten. The last sensations of pain left him. He no longer felt anything, though very faintly he could hear the impact of the club upon his body. But it was no longer his body, it seemed so far away.Collection: Pain
They were not half living, or quarter living. They were simply so many bags of bones in which sparks of life fluttered faintly.Collection: Sparks
The man, with his brain, can pierce the intoxicating mirage of things and contemplate a frozen universe in the most perfect indifference to him and his dreams.Collection: Dream
Make good the good in you...and you will slowly steal into the Hawaiian heart, which is all of softness, and gentleness, and sweetness.Collection: Heart
It is good that man should accept at face value the cheats of sense and snares of flesh, and through the fogs of sentiency pursue the lures and lies of passion.Collection: Lying
Denied the outlet, through play, of his energies, he recoiled upon himself and developed his mental processes. He became cunning; he had idle time in which to devote himself to thoughts of trickery.Collection: Play