“Don’t write too much. Concentrate your sweat on one story, rather than dissipate it over a dozen.”

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.

White Fang knew the law well: to oppress the weak and obey the strong.

Intelligent men are cruel. Stupid men are monstrously cruel.

Alcohol tells truth, but its truth is not normal.

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.

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.

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.

Limited minds can recognize limitations only in others.

The greatest of the arts is the conquering of men.

Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles.

Man rarely places a proper valuation upon his womankind, at least not until deprived of them.

The Law is a lie, and through it men lie most shamelessly.

I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.

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.

The most beautiful stories always start with wreckage.

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.

I can’t concentrate when I’m thinking.

Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details.

Concentration is the root of all the higher abilities in man.

We should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive.

One great cause of failure is lack of concentration.

The best advice I ever came across on the subject of concentration is: Wherever you are, be there.

Diversification may preserve wealth, but concentration builds wealth.

Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.