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Man is man because he chanced to develop intelligence instead of instinct otherwise he would to this day have remained among the anthropoid apes. He has turned away from nature, become unnatural, as it were, disliked the earth upon which he found himself, and changed the face of it somewhat to his liking.

Jack London

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Jack London
Age: 40 †
Born: 1876
Born: January 12
Died: 1916
Died: November 22
Author
Autobiographer
Diarist
Essayist
Journalist
Novelist
Poet
Prosaist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
San Francisco County
California
John Griffith Chaney
John Griffith Jack London
John Griffith Chaney London
John Griffith Jack London Chaney
Would
Face
Develop
Men
Faces
Instinct
Chanced
Upon
Otherwise
Disliked
Away
Turned
Liking
Found
Intelligence
Apes
Nature
Among
Remained
Become
Instead
Unnatural
Earth
Changed
Somewhat

More quotes by Jack London

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Age is never so old as youth would measure it.
Jack London
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I am first of all a white man, and only then a socialist.
Jack London
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Show me a man with a tattoo and I'll show you a man with an interesting past.
Jack London
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I'll have you know I do the swearing on this ship. If I need your assitance I'll call you. Capt. Wolf Larsen
Jack London
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The loneliness of the man is slowly being borne in upon me. There is not a man aboard but hates or fears him, nor is there a man whom he does not despise.
Jack London
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They were not half living, or quarter living. They were simply so many bags of bones in which sparks of life fluttered faintly.
Jack London
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As one grows weaker one is less susceptible to suffering. There is less hurt because there is less to hurt.
Jack London
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He was a killer, a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided, alone, by virtue of his own strength and prowess, surviving triumphantly in a hostile environment where only the strong survive.
Jack London
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Life is so short. I would rather sing one song than interpret the thousand.
Jack London
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You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
Jack London
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The man, with his brain, can pierce the intoxicating mirage of things and contemplate a frozen universe in the most perfect indifference to him and his dreams.
Jack London
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In a saturated population life is always cheap.
Jack London
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I did not begin when I was born, nor when I was conceived. I have been growing, developing, through incalculable myriads of millenniums... All my previous selves have their voices, echoes, promptings in me... Oh, incalculable times again shall I be born.
Jack London
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...men, groping in the Arctic darkness, had found a yellow metal, and because steamship and transportation companies were booming the find, thousands of men were rushing into the Northland. These men wanted dogs, and the dogs they wanted were heavy dogs, with strong muscles by which to toil, and furry coats to protect them from the frost.
Jack London
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But under it all they were men, penetrating the land of desolation and mockery and silence, puny adventurers bent on colossal adventure, pitting themselves against the might of a world as remote and alien and pulseless as the abysses of space.
Jack London
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For the pride of trace and trail was his, and sick unto death, he could not bear that another dog should do his work.
Jack London
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He was always striving to attain it. The life that was so swiftly expanding within him, urged him continually toward the wall of light. The life that was within him knew that it was the one way out, the way he was predestined to tread.
Jack London
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He was mastered by the sheer surging of life, the tidal wave of being, the perfect joy of each separate muscle, joint, and sinew in that it was everything that was not death, that it was aglow and rampant, expressing itself in movement, flying exultantly under the stars.
Jack London
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His conclusion was that things were not always what they appeared to be. The cub's fear of the unknown was an inherited distrust, and it had now been strengthened by experience. Thenceforth, in the nature of things, he would possess an abiding distrust of appearances.
Jack London
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Mental or spiritual health, which is rationality, makes for progress, and the future demands greater and greater mental or spiritual health, greater and greater rationality. The brain must dominate and direct both the individual and society in the time to come, not the belly and the heart.
Jack London