Jack London: Quotes about life

Jack London was American author, journalist, and social activist. Explore interesting quotes on life.

Jack London: 154 quotes47 likes

“Life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.”

As quoted in Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior (1991) by Dan Millman, p. 78
Life’s not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes playing a poor hand well.
As quoted in "They Came to Write in Hawai‘i" by Joseph Theroux, in Spirit of Aloha (March/April 2007)

“And how have I lived? Frankly and openly, though crudely. I have not been afraid of life. I have not shrunk from it. I have taken it for what it was at its own valuation. And I have not been ashamed of it. Just as it was, it was mine.”

“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.”

Jack London book Call of the Wild

Source: The Call of the Wild

“The ghostly winter silence had given way to the great spring murmur of awakening life.”

Jack London book Call of the Wild

Source: The Call of the Wild

“They were not half living, or quarter living. They were simply so many bags of bones in which sparks of life fluttered faintly.”

Jack London book Call of the Wild

Source: The Call of the Wild

“Life? Bah! It has no value. Of cheap things it is the cheapest.”

Jack London book The Sea-Wolf

"The Sea-Wolf" (1904)

“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.”

Jack London book To Build a Fire

"To Build a Fire" published as a collection of short stories in the book Lost Face (1910)

“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.”

Jack London book The Sea-Wolf

Wolf Larsen, Chapter Six
The Sea-Wolf (1904)

“And through it all, calm and impassive, leaning on his elbow and gazing down, Wolf Larsen seemed lost in a great curiosity. This wild stirring of yeasty life, this terrific revolt and defiance of matter that moved, perplexed and interested him.”

Jack London book The Sea-Wolf

Source: The Sea-Wolf (1904), Chapter Twelve

“Life achieves its summit when it does to the uttermost that which it was equipped to do.”

Jack London Index:London - White Fang, 1906.djvu

White Fang (1906)

“"My vision is clear and far. I could almost believe in God. But" - and his voice changed and the light went out of his face - "what is this condition in which I find myself? This joy of living? This exultation of life? This inspiration, I may well call it? It comes when there is nothing wrong with one's digestion, when the stomach is in trim and and his appetite has an edge, and all goes well."”

Jack London book The Sea-Wolf

Source: The Sea-Wolf (1904), Chapter Seven

“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.”

Jack London book Call of the Wild

The Call of the Wild (1903)

“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 Martin Eden

Source: Martin Eden (1909), Ch. VIII