Jack London Zitate

Jack London, einer der prägnantesten Stimmen der amerikanischen Literatur, hat ein beeindruckendes Erbe hinterlassen, das durch seine tiefgründigen Überlegungen zu Natur, Menschlichkeit und Überleben definiert wird.

Seine Werke, darunter berühmte Romane wie Der Ruf der Wildnis, Der Seewolf, Die eiserne Ferse und Martin Eden, zeugen von einer komplexen Auseinandersetzung mit den dunklen und strahlenden Facetten des menschlichen Daseins und der umgebenden Welt.

In dieser Zitatsammlung sind einige der eindrucksvollsten Sätze aus seinen Schriften zusammengetragen.

Zitate aus The Call of the Wild (1903) – Der Ruf der Wildnis

1. „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.“
2. „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.“
3. „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.“

Zitate aus The Sea-Wolf (1904) – Der Seewolf

1. „The cap’n is Wolf Larsen, or so men call him. I never heard his other name. But you better speak soft with him. He is mad this morning. The mate-“ But he did not finish. The cook had glided in.“
2. „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.“
3. „Wolf – tis what he is. He’s not blackhearted like some men. ‚Tis no heart he has at all. Wolf. just Wolf, tis what he is. D’ye wonder he’s well named?“

Zitate aus The Iron Heel (1907) – Die eiserne Ferse

1. „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?“
2. „The great driving force of the oligarchs is the belief that they are doing right.“
3. „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.“

Zitate aus Martin Eden (1909) – Martin Eden

1. „It was just such uniqueness of points of view that startled Ruth. Not only were they new to her, and contrary to her own beliefs, but she always felt in them germs of truth that threatened to unseat or modify her own convictions.“
2. „Much of this he strove to express to Ruth, and shocked her and made it clear that more remodelling was necessary.“
3. „Too much is written by the men who can’t write about the men who do write.“

Zitate aus John Barleycorn (1913) – König Alkohol

1. „I am. I was. I am not. I never am.“
2. „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.“
3. „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.“

Zitate aus Briefen und weiteren Quellen

• „I do not live for what the world thinks of me, but for what I think of myself.“ – Letter to Charles Warren Stoddard (21 August 1903)
  • Dieses Zitat vermittelt Londons tief verankerte Überzeugung zur Selbstbestimmung und individuellen Authentizität, die zentrale Themen in vielen seiner Werke sind.
• „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 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.“ – The Bulletin, San Francisco, California, December 2, 1916
  • Dieses leidenschaftliche Zitat spiegelt Londons Philosophie des Lebens wider, das in voller Intensität gelebt werden sollte, anstatt in der Mittelmäßigkeit zu verharren.
• „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.“ – „Confession“ in Complete Works of Jack London, Delphi Classics, (2013)
  • Dieses Zitat verdeutlicht Londons Sicht auf echte Großzügigkeit und Selbstlosigkeit. Es betont den Wert des Teilens in Zeiten der Not, selbst wenn man selbst Bedürfnisse hat.