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

— Jack London Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior (1991)

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Notes from Wikiquote

Life’s not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes playing a poor hand well. | As quoted in "They Came to Write in Hawai‘i" by Joseph Theroux, in Spirit of Aloha (March/April 2007)

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Life

More quotes by Jack London

Life achieves its summit when it does to the uttermost that which it was equipped to do.

White Fang (1906)

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.

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.

A good joke will sell quicker than a good poem, and, measured in sweat and blood, will bring better remuneration.

He does not lose anything, for with the loss of himself he loses the knowledge of loss.

The Sea-Wolf (1904)

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To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

Bertrand Russell Marriage and Morals (1929)

Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.

William James The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)

Reason is Life's sole arbiter, the magic Laby'rinth's single clue:
Worlds lie above, beyond its ken; what crosses it can ne'er be true.

Richard Francis Burton The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)

It is the law of life that if you are kind to someone you feel happy. If you are cruel you are unhappy. And if you hurt someone, you will be hurt back.

Cary Grant Love – That’s All Cary Grant Ever Thinks About (1964)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Jack London (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.