I would rather be ashes than dust. Jack London More Quotes by Jack London More Quotes From Jack London There is another way of disqualifying the metaphysicians.... Judge them by their works. What have they done for mankind beyond the spinning of airy fancies and the mistaking of their own shadows for gods? Jack London shadowdonejudging The effect of civilization is to impose human law upon environment until it becomes machine-like in its regularity. The objectionable is eliminated, the inevitable is foreseen. One is not even made wet by the rain nor cold by the frost; while death, instead of stalking about gruesome and accidental, becomes a prearranged pageant, moving along a well-oiled groove to the family vault, where the hinges are kept from rusting and the dust from the air is swept continually away. Jack London airrainmoving Love is the sum of all the arts, as it is the reason for their existence. Jack London reasonlove-isart Men do not knowingly drink for the effect alcohol produces on the body. What they drink for is the brain-effect; and if it must come through the body, so much the worse for the body. Jack London alcoholbrainmen Our ape-like and arboreal ancestors entered upon the first of many short cuts. To crack a marrow-bone with a rock was the act which fathered the tool, and between the cracking of a marrow-bone and the riding down town in an automobile lies only a difference of degree. Jack London rockscuttinglying They were firemakers! They were gods! [humans] Jack London fangshumans But this is not a world of free freights. One pays according to an iron schedule--for every strength the balanced weakness; for every high a corresponding low; for every fictitious god-like moment an equivalent time in reptilian slime. For every feat of telescoping long days and weeks of life into mad magnificent instants, one must pay with shortened life, and, oft-times, with savage usury added. Jack London ironmadlong The human race is doomed to sink back farther and farther into the primitive night ere again it begins its bloody climb upward to civilization. Jack London racenightcivilization It was the worst hurt he had ever known. Jack London knownworsthurt I love the flesh. I'm a pagan. "Who are they who speak evil of the clay? The very stars are made of clay like mine!" Jack London claystarsevil He had no conscious knowledge of death, but like every animal of the Wild, he possessed the instinct of death. To him it stood as the greatest of hurts. It was the very essence of the unknown; it was the sum of the terrors of the unknown, the one culminating and unthinkable catastrophe that could happen to him, about which he knew nothing and about which he feared everything. Jack London essencehurtanimal The Law is a lie, and through it men lie most shamelessly. Jack London lawmenlying Mercedes nursed a special grievance - the grievance of sex. She was pretty and soft, and had been chivalrously treated all her days. But the present treatment by her husband and brother was everything save chivalrous. It was her custom to be helpless. They complained. Upon which impeachment of what to her was her most essential sex pregorative, she made their lives unendurable. Jack London husbandbrothersex I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. Jack London writingaddbeauty It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild. (Ch.1) Jack London futility-of-lifeeffortlaughing Stupid women, and all are stupid, think the first winning of the man the final victory. Then they settle down and grow fat, and stale, and dead, and heartbroken. Alas, they are so stupid. But you, little infant-woman with your first victory, you must make your love-life an unending chain of victories. Each day you must win your man again. And when you have won the last victory, when you can find no more to win, then ends love. Finis is written, and your man wanders in strange gardens. Jack London heartbrokenlove-lifestupid In a saturated population life is always cheap. Jack London saturatedpopulationlife-is There are things greater than our wisdom, beyond our justice. The right and wrong of this we cannot say, and it is not for us to judge. Jack London greaterjudgingjustice 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. Jack London animalmenmemories 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
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