Œuvres
Jack London citations célèbres
L'Appel de la forêt, 1903
The Call of the Wild
Martin Eden
Grève générale!
Jack London Citations
Le Peuple de l'abîme, 1903-1904
Le Peuple de l'abîme, 1903-1904
Le Talon de fer, 1908
Jack London: Citations en anglais
The Bulletin, San Francisco, California, December 2, 1916, part 2, p. 1.
Also included in Jack London’s Tales of Adventure, ed. Irving Shepard, Introduction, p. vii (1956)
Variante: "I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time." also mentioned as Jack London quote in Ian Fleming book You Only Live Twice (1964), Ch. 21 : Orbit
Source: San Francisco Bulletin in 1916. Also included as an introduction to a compilation of Jack London short stories in 1956.
“Don't loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club.”
"Getting into Print", first published in 1903 in The Editor magazine
Variante: You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
Contexte: Don't loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don't get it you will nonetheless get something that looks remarkably like it.
Contexte: Fiction pays best of all and when it is of fair quality is more easily sold. A good joke will sell quicker than a good poem, and, measured in sweat and blood, will bring better remuneration. Avoid the unhappy ending, the harsh, the brutal, the tragic, the horrible - if you care to see in print things you write. (In this connection don't do as I do, but do as I say.) Humour is the hardest to write, easiest to sell, and best rewarded... Don't write too much. Concentrate your sweat on one story, rather than dissipate it over a dozen. Don't loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don't get it you will nonetheless get something that looks remarkably like it.
“The Wild still lingered in him and the wolf in him merely slept.”
Source: White Fang
The Bulletin, San Francisco, California, December 2, 1916, part 2, p. 1.
Also included in Jack London’s Tales of Adventure, ed. Irving Shepard, Introduction, p. vii (1956)
Contexte: 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 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.
“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)
"A Piece of Steak" in The Best Short Stories of Jack London (1962) ISBN 0-449-30053-6
"Confession" in Complete Works of Jack London, Delphi Classics, 2013
Variante: Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.
“Intelligent men are cruel. Stupid men are monstrously cruel.”
The Star Rover
Variante: Intelligent men are cruel. Stupid men are monstrously cruel
“He does not lose anything, for with the loss of himself he loses the knowledge of loss.”
Wolf Larsen, Chapter Six
The Sea-Wolf (1904)
Source: Martin Eden (1909), Ch. VIII
Contexte: It was just such uniqueness of points of view that startled Ruth. Not only were they new to her, and contrary to her own beliefs, but she always felt in them germs of truth that threatened to unseat or modify her own convictions. Had she been fourteen instead of twenty-four, she might have been changed by them; but she was twenty-four, conservative by nature and upbringing, and already crystallized into the cranny of life where she had been born and formed. It was true, his bizarre judgments troubled her in the moments they were uttered, but she ascribed them to his novelty of type and strangeness of living, and they were soon forgotten. Nevertheless, while she disapproved of them, the strength of their utterance, and the flashing of eyes and earnestness of face that accompanied them, always thrilled her and drew her toward him. She would never have guessed that this man who had come from beyond her horizon, was, in such moments, flashing on beyond her horizon with wider and deeper concepts. Her own limits were the limits of her horizon; but limited minds can recognize limitations only in others. And so she felt that her outlook was very wide indeed, and that where his conflicted with hers marked his limitations; and she dreamed of helping him to see as she saw, of widening his horizon until it was identified with hers.
"Getting into Print", first published in 1903 in The Editor magazine
Contexte: Fiction pays best of all and when it is of fair quality is more easily sold. A good joke will sell quicker than a good poem, and, measured in sweat and blood, will bring better remuneration. Avoid the unhappy ending, the harsh, the brutal, the tragic, the horrible - if you care to see in print things you write. (In this connection don't do as I do, but do as I say.) Humour is the hardest to write, easiest to sell, and best rewarded... Don't write too much. Concentrate your sweat on one story, rather than dissipate it over a dozen. Don't loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don't get it you will nonetheless get something that looks remarkably like it.
“Show me a man with a tattoo and I'll show you a man with an interesting past.”
Variante: Show me a man with a tattoo and I'll show you a man with an interesting past.
“But I am I. And I won't subordinate my taste to the unanimous judgment of mankind”
Source: Martin Eden
“He was a silent fury who no torment could tame.”
Source: White Fang
“Love, genuine passionate love, was his for the first time.”
Source: The Call of the Wild
“White Fang knew the law well: to oppress the weak and obey the strong.”
Source: White Fang
“Fear urged him to go back, but growth drove him on.”
Source: White Fang
“A man with a club [bat] is a law-maker, a man to be obeyed, but not necessarily conciliated.”
Source: The Call of the Wild
“This expression of abandon and surrender, of absolute trust, he reserved for the master alone.”
Source: White Fang
