Background Image
...
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
...
Please Wait....
Translating....

They Were Not Half

Jack London
...
They Were Not Half Living, Or Quarter Living. They Were Simply So Many Bags Of Bones In Which Sparks Of Life Fluttered Faintly.

Understanding the Quote: "they were not half living, or quarter living. they were simply so..."

This quote by Jack London reflects deeply on the theme of sparks. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Sparks, Bags, Half, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Jack London interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Jack London

Jack London is celebrated for insightful thoughts on sparks and bags. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

Views: 90416
Topic
Sparks
Bags
Half
More From Jack London
Man Rarely Places A Proper Valuation Upon His Womankind, At Least Not Until Deprived Of Them.
Men
Valuation
Deprived
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.
Iron
Mad
Long
I Would Rather That My Spark Should Burn Out In A Brilliant Blaze Than It Should Be Stifled By Dry-rot.
London
Meteors
Sparks
Kill Or Be Killed, Eat Or Be Eaten, Was The Law; And This Mandate, Down Out Of The Depths Of Time.
Law
Depth
Mandates
Don't Write Too Much. Concentrate Your Sweat On One Story, Rather Than Dissipate It Over A Dozen.
Writing
Sweat
Stories
Life? Bah! It Has No Value. Of Cheap Things It Is The Cheapest. Everywhere It Goes Begging. Nature Spills It Out With A Lavish Hand. Where There Is Room For One Life, She Sows A Thousand Lives, And It's Life Eats Life Till The Strongest And Most Piggish Life Is Left.
Life
Hands
Rooms
I Was Jealous; Therefore I Loved.
Jealous
Ever Bike? Now That's Something That Makes Life Worth Living!... Oh, To Just Grip Your Handlebars And Lay Down To It, And Go Ripping And Tearing Through Streets And Road, Over Railroad Tracks And Bridges, Threading Crowds, Avoiding Collisions, At Twenty Miles Or More An Hour, And Wondering All The Time When You're Going To Smash Up. Well, Now, That's Something! And Then Go Home Again After Three Hours Of It... And Then To Think That Tomorrow I Can Do It All Over Again!
Sports
Home
Thinking
As For Me, You Wonder Why I Am A Socialist. I'll Tell You. It Is Because Socialism Is Inevitable; Because The Present Rotten And Irrational System Cannot Endure; Because The Day Is Past For Your Man On Horseback. The Slaves Won't Stand For It. They Are Too Many, And Willy-nilly They'll Drag Down The Would-be Equestrian Before He Gets Astride. You Can't Get Away From Them, And You'll Have To Swallow The Whole Slave-morality. It's Not A Nice Mess, I'll Allow. But It's Been A-brewing And Swallow It You Must.
Nice
Past
Men
So That Was The Way. No Fair Play. Once Down, That Was The End Of You.
Play
Way
Ends
...in His Gambling, He Had One Besetting Weakness -- Faith In A System; And This Made His Damnation Certain.
Gambling
Weakness
Damnation
I Am First Of All A White Man, And Only Then A Socialist.
Men
White Man
Firsts
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.
Strong
Predator
Killers
I Early Learned That There Were Two Natures In Me. This Caused Me A Great Deal Of Trouble, Till I Worked Out A Philosophy Of Life And Struck A Compromise Between The Flesh And The Spirit. Too Great An Ascendancy Of Either Was To Be Abnormal, And Since Normality Is Almost A Fetish Of Mine, I Finally Succeeded In Balancing Both Natures. Ordinarily They Are At Equilibrium; Yet As Frequently As One Is Permitted To Run Rampant, So Is The Other. I Have Small Regard For An Utter Brute Or For An Utter Saint.
Running
Philosophy
Two
A 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.
Life
Beautiful
World
The Trouble With Him Was That He Was Without Imagination. He Was Quick And Alert In The Things Of Life, But Only In The Things, And Not In The Significances. Fifty Degrees Below Zero Meant Eighty-odd Degrees Of Frost. Such Fact Impressed Him As Being Cold And Uncomfortable, And That Was All. It Did Not Lead Him To Meditate Upon His Frailty As A Creature Of Temperature, And Upon Man's Frailty In General, Able Only To Live Within Certain Narrow Limits Of Heat And Cold; And From There On It Did Not Lead Him To The Conjectural Field Of Immortality And Man's Place In The Universe.
Zero
Men
Imagination
It Is So Much Easier To Live Placidly And Complacently. Of Course, To Live Placidly And Complacently Is Not To Live At All.
Easier
Courses
My Life Shall Be Free And Broad And Great, And I Will Not Be The Slave To The Sense Delights Which Chained My Ancient Ancestry. I Reject The Heritage. I Break The Entail. And Who Are You To Say I Am Unwise?
Ancestry
Heritage
Delight
There Is Such A Thing As Anaesthesia Of Pain, Engendered By Pain Too Exquisite To Be Borne.
Pain
Anesthesia
Exquisite
It Is A Simple Matter To See The Obvious, To Do The Expected. The Tendency Of The Individual Life Is To Be Static Rather Than Dynamic, And This Tendency Is Made Into A Propulsion By Civilization, Where The Obvious Only Is Seen, And The Unexpected Rarely Happens. When The Unexpected Does Happen, However, And When It Is Of Sufficiently Grave Import, The Unfit Perish. They Do Not See What Is Not Obvious, Are Unable To Do The Unexpected, Are Incapable Of Adjusting Their Well-grooved Lives To Other And Strange Grooves. In Short, When They Come To The End Of Their Own Groove, They Die.
Simple
Civilization
Adjusting
There Are, Broadly Speaking, Two Types Of Drinkers. There Is The Man Whom We All Know, Stupid, Unimaginative, Whose Brain Is Bitten Numbly By Numb Maggots; Who Walks Generously With Wide-spread, Tentative Legs, Falls Frequently In The Gutter, And Who Sees, In The Extremity Of His Ecstasy, Blue Mice And Pink Elephants.... The Other Type Of Drinker Has Imagination, Vision. Even When Most Pleasantly Jingled He Walks Straight And Naturally, Never Staggers Nor Falls, And Knows Just Where He Is And What He Is Doing. It Is Not His Body But His Brain That Is Drunken.
Stupid
Fall
Men
There's Only One Way To Make A Beginning, And That Is To Begin; And Begin With Hard Work, And Patience, Prepared For All The Disappoint­ment S.
Hard Work
Way
Disappoint
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.
Inspirational
Life
Inspiring
Having No New Companions, Nothing Remained For Him But To Read.
Companion
Mercy Did Not Exist In The Primordial Life. It Was Misunderstood For Fear, And Such Misunderstandings Made For Death.
Misunderstood
Mercy
Made
You Look Back And See How Hard You Worked And How Poor You Were, And How Desperately Anxious You Were To Succeed, And All You Can Remember Is How Happy You Were.
San Francisco
Succeed
Looks
Ever Bike? Now That's Something That Makes Life Worth Living!
Cycling
Life Worth Living
Railroad Tracks
Pray Do Not Interrupt Me," He Wrote. "i Am Smiling.
Praying
Some Sorts Of Truth Are Truer Than Others.
He Was Sounding The Deeps Of His Nature, And Of The Parts Of His Nature That Were Deeper Than He, Going Back Into The Womb Of Time.
Womb
Deeper
The Wild Nature
The Stone The Builders Rejected.
Tombstone
Stones
Rejected
Avoid The Unhappy Ending, The Harsh, The Brutal, The Tragic, The Horrible -- If You Care To See In Print Things You Write. (in This Connection Don't Do As I Do, But Do As I Say.
Writing
Unhappy
Connections
To Be Able To Forget Means Sanity.
Mean
Able
Forget
If Cash Comes With Fame, Come Fame; If Cash Comes Without Fame, Come Cash.
Cash
Fame
Ifs
I'll Have You Know I Do The Swearing On This Ship. If I Need Your Assitance I'll Call You." Capt. Wolf Larsen
Needs
Ships
Swearing
But I Am I. And I Won't Subordinate My Taste To The Unanimous Judgment Of Mankind
Taste
Judgment
Mankind
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.
Alive
Paradox
Mark
If A Company Is Distributing Images And Video Then Obviously They Need Bandwidth Solutions. But If They Are Looking To The Mass Market Then They Must Develop Wap Sites.
Needs
Video
Site
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.
Life
Stars
Perfect
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.
Spiritual
Heart
Brain
The Grapes On A Score Of Rolling Hills Are Red With Autumn Flame. Across Sonoma Mountain Wisps Of Sea Fog Are Stealing. The Afternoon Sun Smoulders In The Drowsy Sky. I Have Everything To Make Me Glad I Am Alive. I Am Filled With Dreams And Mysteries. I Am All Sun And Air And Sparkle. I Am Vitalized, Organic.
Dream
Autumn
Air
I Do Not Live For What The World Thinks Of Me, But For What I Think Of Myself.
Thinking
World
Think Of Me
Do You Know The Only Value Life Has Is What Life Puts Upon Itself? And It Is Of Course Overestimated, For It Is Of Necessity Prejudiced In Its Own Favour. Take That Man I Had Aloft. He Held On As If He Were A Precious Thing, A Treasure Beyond Diamonds Of Rubies. To You? No. To Me? Not At All. To Himself? Yes. But I Do Not Accept His Estimate. He Sadly Overrates Himself. There Is Plenty More Life Demanding To Be Born. Had He Fallen And Dripped His Brains Upon The Deck Like Honey From The Comb, There Would Have Been No Loss To The World. The Supply Is Too Large.
Loss
Men
Brain
But Nobody Else Ever Romped With White Fang. He Did Not Permit It. He Stood On His Dignity, And When They Attempted It, His Warning Snarl And Bristling Mane Were Anything But Playful. That He Allowed The Master These Liberties Was No Reason That He Should Be A Common Dog, Loving Here And Loving There, Everybody's Property For A Romp And Good Time. He Loved With Single Heart And Refused To Cheapen Himself Or His Love.
Dog
Heart
White
And Not Only Did He Learn By Experience, But Instincts Long Dead Became Alive Again. The Domesticated Generations Fell From Him. In Vague Ways He Remembered Back To The Youth Of The Breed, To The Time The Wild Dogs Ranged In Packs Through The Primeval Forest And Killed Their Meat As They Ran It Down.
Dog
Animal
Long
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.
Lying
Cutting
Rocks
I'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.
Song
Heart
Years
The Life That Is Demanding To Be Born Is Limitless. Nature Is A Spendthrift. Look At The Fish And Their Millions Of Eggs. For That Matter, Look At You And Me. In Our Loins Are The Possibilities Of Millions Of Lives. Could We But Find Time And Opportunity And Utilize The Last Bit And Every Bit Of The Unborn Life That Is In Us, We Could Become The Fathers Of Nations And Populate Continents.
Life
Father
Opportunity
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 Function Of Man Is To Live, Not To Exist. I Shall Not Waste My Days Trying To Prolong Them. I Shall Use My Time.
Inspirational
Life
Ambition
Too Much Is Written By The Men Who Can't Write About The Men Who Do Write.
Writing
Men
Too Much
She Was Thrilling To A Desire That Urged Her To Go Forward, To Be In Closer To That Fire, To Be Squabbling With The Dogs, And To Be Avoiding And Dodging The Stumbling Feet Of Men.
Dog
Men
Fire
The Pitch To Which He Was Aroused Was Tremendous. All The Fighting Blood Of His Breed Was Up In Him And Surging Through Him. This Was Living., Though He Did Not Know It. He Was Realizing His Own Meaning In The World; He Was Doing That For Which He Was Made.... He Was Justifying His Existence, Than Which Life Can Do No Greater; For Life Achieves Its Summit When It Does To The Uttermost That Which It Was Equipped To Do.
Fighting
Blood
Doe
He Was A Silent Fury Who No Torment Could Tame.
Silent
Fury
Torment
You Can't Wait For Inspiration. You Have To Go After It With A Club.
Inspirational
Funny
Witty
[speaking To A Group Of Wealthy New Yorkers] A Million Years Ago, The Cave Man, Without Tools, With Small Brain, And With Nothing But The Strength Of His Body, Managed To Feed His Wife And Children, So That Through Him The Race Survived. You On The Other Hand, Armed With All The Modern Means Of Production, Multiplying The Productive Capacity Of The Cave Man A Million Times — You Are Incompetents And Muddlers, You Are Unable To Secure To Millions Even The Paltry Amount Of Bread That Would Sustain Their Physical Life. You Have Mismanaged The World, And It Shall Be Taken From You.
Children
Taken
Mean
All My Life I Have Had An Awareness Of Other Times And Places. I Have Been Aware Of Other Persons In Me. Oh, And Trust Me, So Have You, My Reader That Is To Be. Read Back Into Your Childhood, And This Sense Of Awareness I Speak Of Will Be Remembered As An Experience Of Childhood. You Were Then Not Fixed, Not Crystallized. You Were Plastic, A Soul In Flux, A Consciousness And An Identity In The Process Of Forming--ay, Of Forming And Forgetting.
Childhood
Soul
Identity
Bog-lights, Vapors Of Mysticism, Psychic Overtones, Soul Orgies, Wailings Among The Shadows, Weird Gnosticisms, Veils And Tissues Of Words, Gibbering Subjectivisms, Gropings And Maunderings, Ontological Fantasies ... This Is The Stuff, The Phantasms Of Hope, That Fills Your Book Shelves. Look At Them, All The Sad Wraiths Of Sad Mad Men And Passionate Rebels — Your Schopenhauers, Your Strindbergs, Your Tolstois And Nietzsches. Come. Your Glass Is Empty. Fill And Forget.
Book
Glasses
Light
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.
Hurt
Animal
Essence
The Hand Descended. Nearer And Nearer It Came. It Touched The Ends Of His Upstanding Hair. He Shrank Down Under It. It Followed Down After Him, Pressing More Closely Against Him. Shrinking, Almost Shivering. He Still Managed To Hold Himself Together. It Was A Torment, This Hand That Touched Him And Violated His Instinct. He Could Not Forget In A Day All The Evil That Had Been Wrought Him At The Hands Of Men.
Men
Hair
Hands
White Fang Knew The Law Well: To Oppress The Weak And Obey The Strong.
Strong
Law
White
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.
Adventure
Men
Land
No; I Did Not Hate Him. The Word Is Too Weak. There Is No Word In The Language Strong Enough To Describe My Feelings. I Can Say Only That I Knew The Gnawing Of A Desire For Vengeance On Him That Was A Pain In Itself And That Exceeded All The Bounds Of Language.
Strong
Pain
Hate
Life Is So Short. I Would Rather Sing One Song Than Interpret The Thousand.
Song
Life Is
Life Is So Short
Fear Urged Him To Go Back, But Growth Drove Him On.
Growth
Love Is The Sum Of All The Arts, As It Is The Reason For Their Existence.
Art
Love Is
Reason
Love, Genuine Passionate Love, Was His For The First Time.
Genuine Love
Passionate
Firsts
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.
Memories
Animal
Men
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.
Hate
Loneliness
Men
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.
Men
Earth
Faces
Of Her Own Experience She Had No Memory Of The Thing Happening; But In Her Instinct, Which Was The Experience Of All Mothers Of Wolves, There Lurked A Memory Of Fathers That Had Eaten Their New-born And Helpless Progeny.
Mother
Memories
Father
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.
Dream
Men
Perfect
Somehow, The Love Of The Islands, Like The Love Of A Woman, Just Happens. One Cannot Determine In Advance To Love A Particular Woman, Nor Can One So Determine To Love Hawaii.
Islands
Hawaii
Determine
Deep In The Forest A Call Was Sounding, And As Often As He Heard This Call, Mysteriously Thrilling And Luring, He Felt Compelled To Turn His Back Upon The Fire And The Beaten Earth Around It, And To Plunge Into The Forest, And On And On, He Knew Not Where Or Why; Nor Did He Wonder Where Or Why, The Call Sounding Imperiously, Deep In The Forest.
Fire
Earth
Forests
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?
Judging
Shadow
Done
I Am A Hopeless Materialist. I See The Soul As Nothing Else Than The Sim Of Activities Of The Organism Plus Personal Habits - Plus Inherited Habits, Memories, Experiences, Of The Organism. I Believe That When I Am Dead, I Am Dead. I Believe That With My Death I Am Just As Much Obliterated As The Last Mosquito You And I Squashed.
Memories
Believe
Soul
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.
Brother
Sex
Husband
He Was Not Immoral, But Merely Unmoral.
Immoral
The Ghostly Winter Silence Had Given Way To The Great Spring Murmur Of Awakening Life.
Spring
Winter
Silence
And How Have I Lived? Frankly And Openly, Though Crudely. I Have Not Been Afraid Of Life. I Have Not Shrunk From It. I Have Taken It For What It Was At Its Own Valuation. And I Have Not Been Ashamed Of It. Just As It Was, It Was Mine.
Taken
Afraid Of Life
Ashamed
Life Creeps Slowly Upward.... When Some Forgotten Inventor Of The Older World Smote His Rival Or Enemy With A Branch Of Wood And Found That It Was Good And Thereafter Made A Practice Of Smiting Rivals And Enemies With Branches Of Wood, Then, And On That Day, Artificiality May Be Said To Have Begun. Then, And On That Day, Was Begun A Revolution Destined To Change The History Of Life. Then, And On That Day, Was Laid The Cornerstone Of That Most Tremendous Of Artifices, Civilization!
Practice
Civilization
Enemy
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.
Men
Alcohol
Brain
Cruelty, As A Fine Art, Has Attained Its Perfect Flower In The Trained-animal World.
Art
Flower
Animal
Intelligent Men Are Cruel. Stupid Men Are Monstrously Cruel.
Stupid
Intelligent
Men
The Law Is A Lie, And Through It Men Lie Most Shamelessly.
Lying
Men
Law
Strength Is An Empty Shell.
Strength
Shells
Empty
Man Is A Flux Of States Of Consciousness, A Flow Of Passing Thoughts, Each Thought Of Self Another Self, A Myriad Thoughts, A Myriad Selves, A Continual Becoming But Never Being, A Will-of-the-wisp Flitting Of Ghosts In Ghostland.
Men
Self
Flow
He 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.
Dog
Fighting
Law
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.
Night
Race
Civilization
A Vast Silence Reigned Over The Land. The Land Itself Was A Desolation, Lifeless, Without Movement, So Lone And Cold That The Spirit Of It Was Not Even That Of Sadness. There Was A Hint In It Of Laughter, But Of Laughter More Terrible Than Any Sadness-a Laughter That Was Mirthless As The Smile Of The Sphinx, A Laughter Cold As The Frost And Partaking Of The Grimness Of Infallibility. 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.
Dog
Laughter
Sadness
Life, In A Sense, Is Living And Surviving. And All That Makes For Living And Surviving Is Good. He Who Follows The Fact Cannot Go Astray, While He Who Has No Reverence For The Fact Wanders Afar.
Life
Afar
Facts
A Good Joke Will Sell Quicker Than A Good Poem, And, Measured In Sweat And Blood, Will Bring Better Remuneration.
Blood
Sweat
Remuneration
As 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.
Tattoo
Thinking
Blood
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.
Heartbroken
Stupid
Love Life
In A Saturated Population Life Is Always Cheap.
Population
Life Is
Saturated
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!"
Stars
Evil
Clay
Then One Can't Make A Living Out Of Poetry? Certainly Not. What Fool Expects To? Out Of Rhyming, Yes.
Poetry
Rhyming
Fool
Thus It Was That In Obedience To The Law Laid Down By His Mother, And In Obedience To The Law Of That Unknown And Nameless Thing, Fear, He Kept Away From The Mouth Of The Cave.
Mother
Law
Caves
Darn The Wheel Of The World! Why Must It Continually Turn Over? Where Is The Reverse Gear?
Time
Gears
World
I Write For No Other Purpose Than To Add To The Beauty That Now Belongs To Me.
Beauty
Writing
Add
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.
Justice
Judging
Greater
But, – And There It Is, – We Want To Live And Move, Though We Have No Reason To, Because It Happens That It Is The Nature Of Life To Live And Move, To Want To Live And Move. If It Were Not For This, Life Would Be Dead. It Is Because Of This Life That Is In You That You Dream Of Your Immortality.
Dream
Moving
Would Be
Not All The Monsters Have Fangs.
Real
Real Life
Monsters
The Word Is Too Weak. There Is No Word In The Language Strong Enough To Describe My Feelings.
Strong
Feelings
Language
It Is Good That Man Should Accept At Face Value The Cheats Of Sense And Snares Of Flesh, And Through The Fogs Of Sentiency Pursue The Lures And Lies Of Passion.
Lying
Passion
Men
San Francisco Is Gone. Nothing Remains Of It But Memories.
Memories
San Francisco
Gone
The Great Task Demanded Of Man Is Reproduction. He Is Urged By Passion To Perform This Task. Passion, Working Through The Imagination, Produces Love. Passion Is The Impelling Factor, Imagination The Disturbing Factor; And The Disturbance Of Passion By Imagination Produces Love.
Passion
Men
Imagination
When, On The Still Cold Nights, He Pointed His Nose At A Star And Howled Long And Wolf-like, It Was His Ancestors, Dead And Dust, Pointing Nose At Star And Howling Down Through The Centuries And Through Him. And His Cadences Were Their Cadences, The Cadences Which Voiced Their Woe And What To Them Was The Meaning Of The Stillness, And The Cold, And Dark.
Stars
Dark
Night
I Believe That When I Am Dead, I Am Dead. I Believe That With My Death I Am Just As Much Obliterated As The Last Mosquito You And I Squashed.
Believe
Religion
Atheism
They Were Not Half Living, Or Quarter Living. They Were Simply So Many Bags Of Bones In Which Sparks Of Life Fluttered Faintly.
Sparks
Bags
Half
Socialism, When The Last Word Is Said, Is Merely A New Economic And Political System Whereby More Men Can Get Food To Eat.
Men
Political
Lasts
Denied The Outlet, Through Play, Of His Energies, He Recoiled Upon Himself And Developed His Mental Processes. He Became Cunning; He Had Idle Time In Which To Devote Himself To Thoughts Of Trickery.
Play
Energy
Process
The First Theft Marked Buck As Fit To Survive In The Hostile Northland Environment. It Marked His Adaptability, His Capacity To Adjust Himself To Changing Conditions, The Lack Of Which Would Have Meant Swift And Terrible Death. It Marked, Further, The Decay Or Going To Pieces Of His Moral Nature, A Vain Thing And A Handicap In The Ruthless Struggle For Existence.
Struggle
Decay
Pieces
You Have Grudged The Very Fire In Your House Because The Wood Cost Overmuch!" He Cried. "you Have Grudged Life. To Live Cost Overmuch, And You Have Refused To Pay The Price. Your Life Has Been Like A Cabin Where The Fire Is Out And There Are No Blankets On The Floor." He Signaled To A Slave To Fill His Glass, Which He Held Aloft. "but I Have Lived. And I Have Been Warm With Life As You Have Never Been Warm. It Is True, You Shall Live Long. But The Longest Nights Are The Cold Nights When A Man Shivers And Lies Awake. My Nights Have Been Short, But I Have Slept Warm
Lying
Night
Men
My Mistake Was In Ever Opening The Books.
Mistake
Book
My Mistakes
I Was Carrying A Beautiful Alcoholic Conflagration Around With Me. The Thing Fed On Its Own Heat And Flamed The Fiercer. There Was No Time, In All My Waking Time, That I Didn't Want A Drink. I Began To Anticipate The Completion Of My Daily Thousand Words By Taking A Drink When Only Five Hundred Words Were Written. It Was Not Long Until I Prefaced The Beginning Of The Thousand Words With A Drink.
Beautiful
Humor
Long
The Greatest Of The Arts Is The Conquering Of Men.
Art
Men
Conquer
He Became Quicker Of Movement Than The Other Dogs, Swifter Of Foot, Craftier, Deadlier, More Lithe, More Lean With Ironlike Muscle And Sinew, More Enduring, More Cruel More Ferocious, And More Intelligent. He Had To Become All These Things, Else He Would Not Have Held His Own Nor Survived The Hostile Environment In Which He Found Himself.
Dog
Intelligent
Feet
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)
Futility Of Life
Laughing
Effort
I Would Rather Be A Superb Meteor, Every Atom Of Me In Magnificent Glow, Than A Sleepy And Permanent Planet.
Sleep
Atoms
Writing Words
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.
Inspiration
Writing
Light
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.
Rain
Moving
Air
Love Cannot In Its Very Nature Be Peaceful Or Content. It Is A Restlessness, An Unsatisfaction. I Can Grant A Lasting Love Just As I Can Grant A Lasting Unsatisfaction; But The Lasting Love Cannot Be Coupled With Possession, For Love Is Pain And Desire And Possession Is Easement And Fulfilment.
Pain
Love Is
Peaceful
The Function Of Man Is To Live, Not To Exist.
Short Life
Men
Atoms
A Man With A Club Is A Law-maker.
Men
Law
Clubs
He Felt Strangely Numb. As Though From A Great Distance, He Was Aware That He Was Being Beaten. The Last Sensations Of Pain Left Him. He No Longer Felt Anything, Though Very Faintly He Could Hear The Impact Of The Club Upon His Body. But It Was No Longer His Body, It Seemed So Far Away.
Pain
Distance
Impact
More You Drink More You Want
Want
Drink
To Have A Full Stomach, To Daze Lazily In The Sunshine--such Things Were Remuneration In Full For His Adors And Toils, While His Ardors And Toils Were In Themselves Self-remunerative. They Were Expressions Of Life, And Life Is Always Happy When It Is Expressing Itself.
Sunshine
Self
Expression
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.
Dog
Generosity
Giving
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. This Ecstasy, This Forgetfulness Of Living, Comes To The Artist, Caught Up And Out Of Himself In A Sheet Of Flame; It Comes To The Soldier, War-mad In A Stricken Field And Refusing Quarter; And It Came To Buck, Leading The Pack, Sounding The Old Wolf-cry, Straining After The Food That Was Alive And That Fled Swiftly Before Him Through The Moonlight.
War
Thinking
Artist
Make Good The Good In You...and You Will Slowly Steal Into The Hawaiian Heart, Which Is All Of Softness, And Gentleness, And Sweetness.
Heart
Hawaii
Stealing
Show Me A Man With A Tattoo And I'll Show You A Man With An Interesting Past.
Tattoo
Past
Men
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.
Abiding
Fear Of The Unknown
Appearance
They Were Firemakers! They Were Gods! [humans]
Humans
Fangs
Pursuit And Possession Are Accompanied By States Of Consciousness So Wide Apart That They Can Never Be United.
Consciousness
States
Pursuit
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.
Wall
Light
Way
One Cannot Violate The Promptings Of One's Nature Without Having That Nature Recoil Upon Itself.
Environment
Recoil
This Expression Of Abandon And Surrender, Of Absolute Trust, He Reserved For The Master Alone.
Expression
Surrender
Masters
. . . And God Knows We Are Sensitive To The Suffering That Has Sometimes Broken Loose To Come Billowing Forth From Your Appendages Like The Pungent Vapors Of Whales - Often It Appears That In This Life Of Experience And Accommodation We Pay Just As Dearly For Our Triumphs As We Do For Our Defeats. But Sissy . . . Hold On!
Life
Whales
Justice
Limited Minds Can Recognize Limitations Only In Others.
Mind
Limitation
The Marriage Tie Becomes Possessed Of A History And Takes To Itself Traditions. This History And These Traditions Form A Great Fund, To Which Changing Conditions And Growing Imagination Constantly Add. And The Traditions, More Especially, Bear Heavily Upon The Individual, Overmastering His Natural Expression Of The Love Instinct And Forcing Him To An Artificial Expression Of That Love Instinct. He Loves, Not As His Savage Forbears Loved, But As His Group Loves.
Expression
Ties
Imagination
You Stand On Dead Men's Legs. You've Never Had Any Of Your Own. You Couldn't Walk Alone Between Two Sunrises And Hustle The Meat For Your Belly
Men
Two
Sunrise
Had The Cub Thought In Man-fashion, He Might Have Epitomized Life As A Voracious Appetite, And The World As A Place Wherein Ranged A Multitude Of Appetites, Pursuing And Being Pursued, Hunting And Being Hunted, Eating And Being Eaten, All In Blindness And Confusion, With Violence And Disorder, A Chaos Of Gluttony And Slaughter, Ruled Over By Chance, Merciless, Planless, Endless.
Fashion
Men
Hunting
With The Aurora Borealis Flaming Coldly Overhead, Or The Stars Leaping In The Frost Dance, And The Land Numb And Frozen Under Its Pall Of Snow, This Song Of The Huskies Might Have Been The Defiance Of Life, Only It Was Pitched In Minor Key, With Long-drawn Wailings And Half-sobs, And Was More The Pleading Of Life, The Articulate Travail Of Existence. It Was An Old Song, Old As The Breed Itself--one Of The First Songs Of The Younger World In A Day When Songs Were Sad.
Song
Stars
Keys
On The Sled, In The Box, Lay A Third Man Whose Toil Was Over, - A Man Whom The Wild Had Conquered And Beaten Down Until He Would Never Move Nor Struggle Again. It Is Not The Way Of The Wild To Like Movement. Life Is An Offense To It, For Life Is Movement; And The Wild Aims Always To Destroy Movement.
Struggle
Moving
Men
The Game Of Life Is Good, Though All Of Life May Be Hurt, And Though All Lives Lose The Game In The End.
Life
Hurt
Games
His Bondage Had Softened Him. Irresponsibility Had Weakened Him. He Had Forgotten How To Shift For Himself. The Night Yawned About Him.
Night
Forgotten
Bondage
Go Strip Off Your Clothes That Are A Nuisance In This Mellow Clime. Get In And Wrestle With The Sea; Wing Your Heels With The Skill And Power That Reside In You, Hit The Sea's Breakers, Master Them, And Ride Upon Their Backs As A King Should.
Kings
Clothes
Sea
The Most Beautiful Stories Always Start With Wreckage.
Beautiful
Stories
Wreckage
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.
Echoes
Self
Voice
He Was Justifying His Existence, Than Which Life Can Do No Greater; For Life Achieves Its Summit When It Does To The Uttermost That Which It Was Equipped To Do.
Doe
Achieve
Existence
A Good Soldier Is A Blind, Heartless, Soulless, Murderous Machine. He Is Not A Man. His Is Not A Brute, For Brutes Kill Only In Self Defense. All That Is Human In Him, All That Is Divine In Him, All That Constitutes The Man Has Been Sworn Away When He Took The Enlistment Roll. His Mind, His Conscience, Aye, His Very Soul, Are In The Keeping Of His Officer. No Man Can Fall Lower Than A Soldier-it Is A Depth Beneath Which We Cannot Go.
War
Fall
Men
Where Others Have Hearts, He Carries A Tumor Of Rotten Principles.
Sarcastic
Heart
Principles
The Wild Still Lingered In Him And The Wolf In Him Merely Slept.
Stills
Lurking
It's Better To Stand By Someone's Side Than By Yourself
Sides
Affluence Means Influence.
Mean
Reality
Affluence
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.
Dog
Strong
Hair
The Aim Of Life Was Meat. Life Itself Was Meat. Life Lived On Life. There Were The Eaters And The Eaten.
Meat
Aim Of Life
Aim
Out Of This Pack-persecution He Learned Two Important Things: How To Take Care Of Himself In A Mass-fight Against Him; And How, On A Single Dog, To Inflict The Greatest Amount Of Damage In The Briefest Space Of Time.
Dog
Fighting
Two
I Remembered My Days And Nights Of Sunshine And Starshine, Where Life Was All A Wild Sweet Wonder, A Spiritual Paradise Of Unselfish Adventure And Ethical Romance. And I Saw Before Me, Ever Blazing And Burning, The Holy Grail.
Life
Spiritual
Sweet
Food And Fire, Protection And Companionship, Were Some Of The Things He Received From The God. In Return, He Guarded The God's Property, Defended His Body, Worked For Him, And Obeyed Him.
Fire
Body
Return
Alcohol Tells Truth, But Its Truth Is Not Normal.
Alcohol
Normal
Truth Is
For The Pride Of Trace And Trail Was His, And Sick Unto Death, He Could Not Bear That Another Dog Should Do His Work.
Dog
Pride
Sick
I Was Five Years Old The First Time I Got Drunk.
Years
Drunk
Firsts
Pictures! Pictures! Pictures! Often, Before I Learned, Did I Wonder Whence Came The Multitudes Of Pictures That Thronged My Dreams; For They Were Pictures The Like Of Which I Had Never Seen In Real Wake-a-day Life. They Tormented My Childhood, Making Of My Dreams A Procession Of Nightmares And A Little Later Convincing Me That I Was Different From My Kind, A Creature Unnatural And Accursed.
Dream
Real
Childhood
The Fortunate Man Is The One Who Cannot Take More Than A Couple Of Drinks Without Becoming Intoxicated. The Unfortunate Wight Is The One Who Can Take Many Glasses Without Betraying A Sign; Who Must Take Numerous Glasses In Order To Get The ‘kick’.
Couple
Men
Glasses
And At The Instant He Knew, He Ceased To Know.
Instant
Knows
Desire Is A Pain Which Seeks Easement Through Possession.
Pain
Desire
Possession
As One Grows Weaker One Is Less Susceptible To Suffering. There Is Less Hurt Because There Is Less To Hurt.
Hurt
Suffering
Weakness
Life Is Not A Matter Of Holding Good Cards, But Sometimes, Playing A Poor Hand Well.
Inspirational
Life
Motivational
Everything Is Good . . . As Long As It Is Unpossessed. Satiety And Possession Are Death's Horses They Run In Span.
Running
Horse
Long
A Man With A Club [bat] Is A Law-maker, A Man To Be Obeyed, But Not Necessarily Conciliated.
Men
Law
Bats
The Aim Of Life Was Meat. Life Itself Was Meat. Life Lived On Life. There Were The Eaters And The Eaten. The Law Was: Eat Or Be Eaten. He Did Not Formulate The Law In Clear, Set Terms And Moralize About It. He Did Not Even Think The Law; He Merely Lived The Law Without Thinking About It At All.
Thinking
Law
Meat
The Scab Is A Traitor To His God, His Mother, And His Class.
Mother
Fake People
Class
I Write For No Other Purpose Than To Add To The Beauty That Now Belongs To Me. I Write A Book For No Other Reason Than To Add Three Or Four Hundred Acres To My Magnificent Estate.
Book
Writing
Add
But Especially He Loved To Run In The Dim Twilight Of The Summer Midnights, Listening To The Subdued And Sleepy Murmurs Of The Forest, Reading Signs And Sounds As A Man May Read A Book, And Seeking For The Mysterious Something That Called -- Called, Waking Or Sleeping, At All Times, For Him To Come.
Summer
Running
Book
It Was The Worst Hurt He Had Ever Known.
Hurt
Worst
Known
...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.
Dog
Strong
Men
He Had Come To Know Quite Thoroughly The World In Which He Lived. His Outlook Was Bleak And Materialistic. The World As He Saw It Was A Fierce And Brutal World, A World Without Warmth, A World In Which Caresses And Affection And The Bright Sweetness Of Spirit Did Not Exist.
World
Saws
Spirit
Age Is Never So Old As Youth Would Measure It.
Age
Youth
I Would Rather Be Ashes Than Dust.
Dust
Ashes
Trending Author
Andrew Lang
Joe DiMaggio
Jo Nesbo
Daniel Burnham
Raekwon
Yannick Noah
Category
Information