The quotations of

Jack London

American author, journalist and social activist

1876–1916

10 quotes, most often on Life & Death, Motivation & Goals and Nature.

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 Bulletin, San Francisco (2 December 1916), part 2, p. 1, ten days after his deathOften credited to Ian Fleming
- Life & Death
- Motivation & Goals
You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
- Motivation & Goals
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.
“Confession” in Complete Works of Jack London, Delphi Classics, (2013)
- Charity
Life achieves its summit when it does to the uttermost that which it was equipped to do.
White Fang (1906)
- Life & Death
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.
“Getting into Print”, first published in 1903 in The Editor magazine
- Inspiration
- Writing
Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tide-water dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego.
The Call of the Wild (1903), Chapter IIn context
- Animals
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.
The Call of the Wild (1903), Chapter IIIIn context
- Happiness
- Life & Death
He was beaten (he knew that); but he was not broken.
The Call of the Wild (1903), Chapter IIn context
- Character
- Courage
He must master or be mastered; while to show mercy was a weakness. Mercy did not exist in the primordial life. It was misunderstood for fear, and such misunderstandings made for death. Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, was the law; and this mandate, down out of the depths of Time, he obeyed.
The Call of the Wild (1903), Chapter VIIn context
- Nature
- Power
When the long winter nights come on and the wolves follow their meat into the lower valleys, he may be seen running at the head of the pack through the pale moonlight or glimmering borealis, leaping gigantic above his fellows, his great throat a-bellow as he sings a song of the younger world, which is the song of the pack.
The Call of the Wild (1903), Chapter VIIIn context
- Animals
- Nature

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