Man always gets less than he demands from life; and so little do they demand, that the less than little they get cannot save them.
 Jack London, The People of the Abyss (1903). copy citation

add
Author Jack London
Source The People of the Abyss
Topic life
Date 1903
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_People_of_the_Abyss

Context

“There is no progress, and with them not to progress is to fall back and into the Abyss. In their own lives they may only start to fall, leaving the fall to be completed by their children and their children's children. Man always gets less than he demands from life; and so little do they demand, that the less than little they get cannot save them. At the best, city life is an unnatural life for the human; but the city life of London is so utterly unnatural that the average workman or workwoman cannot stand it. Mind and body are sapped by the undermining influences ceaselessly at work.” source