The Call of the Wild (Primary source)
The Call of the Wild is a short novel by Jack London set during the Klondike Gold Rush. It follows Buck, a large domesticated dog living comfortably in California, who is stolen and sold into the brutal world of sled dogs in the Yukon.
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“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 on 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.”
Jack London
“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 Secondary source“Life achieves its summit when it does to the uttermost that which it was equipped to do.”
— Jack London Primary source“The ghostly winter silence had given way to the great spring murmur of awakening life.”
— Jack London Primary source“Love, genuine passionate love, was his for the first time.”
— Jack London Primary source“Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt Primary source“He that lies down with dogs, shall rise up with fleas.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source“If you stop complaining and asking for what you never will get, you will have a good life. A good life is not measured by any biblical span.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source“If you don’t get elementary probability into your repertoire, you go through a long life like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.”
— Charlie Munger Primary source