“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.”
Jack London
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 Wild still lingered in him and the wolf in him merely slept.”
— Jack London Primary source“The ghostly winter silence had given way to the great spring murmur of awakening life.”
— Jack London Primary source“Life achieves its summit when it does to the uttermost that which it was equipped to do.”
— Jack London Primary source“You never kill any one that you want to kill in a war.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source“Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Discharge your duties faithfully and well. Step by step you get ahead, but not necessarily in fast spurts. But you build discipline by preparing for fast spurts. Slug it out one inch at a time, day by day, and at the end of the day—if you live long enough—like most people, you will get out of life what you deserve.”
— Charlie Munger Primary source“We are both caught up in a vicious and dangerous cycle in which suspicion on one side breeds suspicion on the other, and new weapons beget counterweapons.”
— John F. Kennedy Primary source