Quotes

He paid some attention to the management of his collieries in the Midland counties, excusing himself for this taint of industry on the ground that the one advantage of having coal was that it enabled a gentleman to afford the decency of burning wood on his own hearth. ~ The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde 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. ~ The Call of the Wild by Jack London He was beaten (he knew that); but he was not broken. He saw, once for all, that he stood no chance against a man with a club. He had learned the lesson, and in all his after life he never forgot it. That club was a revelation. It was his introduction to the reign of primitive law, and he met the introduction halfway. The facts of life took on a fiercer aspect; and while he faced that aspect uncowed, he faced it with all the latent cunning of his nature aroused. ~ The Call of the Wild by Jack London Each day mankind and the claims of mankind slipped farther from him. 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. ~ The Call of the Wild by Jack London All that stirring of old instincts which at stated periods drives men out from the sounding cities to forest and plain to kill things by chemically propelled leaden pellets, the blood lust, the joy to kill--all this was Buck's, only it was infinitely more intimate. He was ranging at the head of the pack, running the wild thing down, the living meat, to kill with his own teeth and wash his muzzle to the eyes in warm blood. ~ The Call of the Wild by Jack London And when, on the still cold nights, he pointed his nose at a star and howled long and wolflike, it was his ancestors, dead and dust, pointing nose at star and howling down through the centuries and through him. ~ The Call of the Wild by Jack London "We should regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry them forward into the future with us." ~ Anne Of Avonlea by Lucy Maud Montgomery "We must have ideals and try to live up to them, even if we never quite succeed. Life would be a sorry business without them. With them it's grand and great." ~ Anne Of Avonlea by Lucy Maud Montgomery "Marilla says that a large family was raised in that old house long ago, and that it was a real pretty place, with a lovely garden and roses climbing all over it. It was full of little children and laughter and songs; and now it is empty, and nothing ever wanders through it but the wind. How lonely and sorrowful it must feel! Perhaps they all come back on moonlit nights. . .the ghosts of the little children of long ago and the roses and the songs. . .and for a little while the old house can dream it is young and joyous again." ~ Anne Of Avonlea by Lucy Maud Montgomery "There are so many unpleasant things in the world already that there is no use in imagining any more." ~ Anne Of Avonlea by Lucy Maud Montgomery