Pursuit and possession are accompanied by states of consciousness so wide apart that they can never be united.
Jack LondonA human life the treasure of the world cannot buy; nor can it redeem one which is misspent; nor can it make full and complete and beautiful a life which is dwarfed and warped and ugly.
Jack LondonThere 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 LondonI'd rather sing one wild song and burst my heart with it, than live a thousand years watching my digestion and being afraid of the wet.
Jack LondonHe had learned well the law of club and fang, and he never forewent an advantage or drew back from a foe he had started on the way to Death. He had lessoned from Spitz, and from the chief fighting dogs of the police and mail, and knew there was no middle course. 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.
Jack LondonAs for the primitive, I hark back to it because we are still very primitive. How many thousands of years of culture, think you, have rubbed and polished at our raw edges? One probably; at the best, no more than two. And that takes us back to screaming savagery, when, gross of body and deed, we drank blood from the skulls of our enemies, and hailed as highest paradise the orgies and carnage of Valhalla.
Jack London