“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.”

— Jack London

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)

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Jack London 77

American author, journalist, and social activist 1876–1916

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“I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.”

Jack London (1876–1916) American author, journalist, and social activist

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)
Context: 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.

“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 (1876–1916) American author, journalist, and social activist

Variant: "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.

“I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”

Ian Fleming book You Only Live Twice

Source: You Only Live Twice (1964), Ch. 21 : Orbit. Fleming is quoting Jack London directly.

“I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees.”

Euripidés (-480–-406 BC) ancient Athenian playwright

“I would rather have been a French peasant and worn wooden shoes; I would rather have lived in a hut, with a vine growing over the door and the grapes growing and ripening in the autumn sun; I would rather have been that peasant, with my wife by my side and my children upon my knees, twining their arms of affection about me; I would rather have been that poor French peasant and gone down at last to the eternal promiscuity of the dust, followed by those who loved me; I would a thousand times rather have been that French peasant than that imperial personative of force and murder; and so I would —ten thousand thousand times.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Soliloquy at the tomb of Napoleon (1882); noted to have been misreported as "I would rather be the humblest peasant that ever lived … at peace with the world than be the greatest Christian that ever lived" by Billy Sunday (May 26, 1912), as reported in Paul F. Boller, Jr., and John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions (1989), p. 52-53.

“I've been trying to live my life so that in the hour of my death I would rather feel joy, than fear.”

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After the announcement of the death sentence.
Source: Bartłomiej Kuraś, Witold Pilecki – w Auschwitzu z własnej woli, „Ale Historia”, w: „Gazeta Wyborcza”, 22 kwietnia 2013.