James Vila Blake Quotes

• This is our great covenant:
  To dwell together in peace,
  To seek the truth in love,
  And to help one another.

  James Vila Blake

  Together, Covenant, Helping

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• Luck, good or bad, is the invisible play of mind upon affairs, the effect of mental aptitudes and habits which are not in sight, but which work and bring forth their due issues.

  James Vila Blake

  Sight, Play, Issues

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• Meditation is first quietness. We live in a great din. It is well to see (for who sees it not will have but narrow sympathies and understand little that occurs around him) that the noise is often a noble uproar, "deep calling unto deep," the clamor of wonderful machinery, of great labors, of human struggles, of heroes' voices. But storms, though grand, must sink if the sea is to show the stars.

  James Vila Blake

  Stars, Hero, Struggle

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• Kindness is not like a barter, so much for so much; or so much by contract, and my duty done. But kindness is like a righteousness or like a worship, not done unless it be done all I can. For the heart must run forth without measure like a child, and kindness be wound around like a child's arms about the neck, not by measure, but as tightly and as long as they can be.

  James Vila Blake

  Running, Kindness, Children

  James Vila Blake (1893). “More Than Kin: a Book of Kindness ...”

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• La democracia se ha convertido, a menos que me equivoque, en una especie de prueba o shibboleth, por el que probamos a los hombres y las medidas; y esto es lo mismo que decir que es simplemente una palabra que es poderosa con nosotros, y no la noción amplia y verdadera de lo que significa la palabra. Pero debemos definir el verdadero significado de las palabras, y no ser esclavos de las sílabas; porque la democracia en su forma no es necesariamente poder popular de hecho, sino poder tal vez de unos pocos, que engatusan a muchos y así dirigen y utilizan al pueblo para sus propios fines.

  James Vila Blake

  Powerful, Mistake, Mean

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• The fear of death has been raised too much and set up on high, especially by preachers, like the brazen serpent in the wilderness over the heads of the Israelites; but not with so good excuse as that symbol had, for this fear has not been curative, I think, nor made into pleasant or graceful shape, but rather a horrid spectacle, to affright people. For that men can be frightened into piety has been one of the legacies of religion which barbarous ages have bequeathed us plentifully.

  James Vila Blake

  Hombres, Pensamiento, Gente

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• As but a swift glance is enough to catch the glory of a great landscape, or only a little lingering is necessary to observe many peculiar beauties in it, so but a brief turn of the mind to sublime thoughts will give us their light and power.

  James Vila Blake

  Light, Giving, Sublime

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• when a great war has cut off the young men of a nation it never can be told thereafter what losses of scholars, poets, thinkers and great designers the country and the world have suffered.

  James Vila Blake

  Country, War, Cutting

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• Individuality in opinion, or, what is more, in thinking, is simply one with thinking at all; for he who thinks thereby looks at the thing or the fact itself and takes its measure by observation directly, not content with the measures of others.

  James Vila Blake

  Thinking, Individuality, Looks

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• Meditation ... must be power of will and strength of attention, being like a flight to great heights wherein wings must be plied hard though joyfully.

  James Vila Blake

  Wings, Meditation, Attention

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• We have great power to see the truth when the truth is all we wish to see; but what is easier than to credit what we desire? and can a man deceive anyone so easily as himself?

  James Vila Blake

  Truth, Men, Wish

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• Ahora bien, si comprendemos lo que son las personas desafortunadas, veremos que hay que rehuirlas, o que debemos relacionarnos con ellas sólo por bondad o por simpatía, pero sin unir nuestros intereses a los suyos; porque son personas que no están en armonía con la condición de las cosas que las rodean, y están tan en desacuerdo con la vida como un pájaro que tratara de vivir en el agua, o un pez de flotar en el aire.

  James Vila Blake

  Kindness, Issues, Air

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• It is worth thought what kind of mind or condition or disposition is open to flattery; for poison would not be spread if the rats ate it not.

  James Vila Blake

  Mind, Poison, Rats

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• Un enemigo nos adiestrará en la vigilancia; porque si él se muestra cauteloso para aprovechar cualquier error y ponernos la zancadilla, nosotros estaremos más atentos para no exponernos a nada, y esto nos impulsará a la prudencia y a la reflexión.

  James Vila Blake

  Errors, Enemy, Thoughtfulness

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• Common sense is so just an understanding that it rises almost to a virtue; in truth, it involves virtues and their participation in judgment. For sound sense implies all powers uniting; none too prominent, so as to tyrannize; none too small, so as to be overborne.

  James Vila Blake

  Common Sense, Understanding, Sound

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• Like all passions, anger has degrees, ascending from slight vexation through deepening clouds to rage, and finally to fury, which is a black and horrible tempest. In its mid-region, where it is neither too little to be motive nor too furious to be ungovernable, it has usefulness. For all feeling is as fuel, and where there is none life has no fire, and then no flame of ascent.

  James Vila Blake

  Anger, Passion, Fire

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• As anger is a passing storm, so it comes not gradually and with signs, but like a sudden sweep of wind or black squall.

  James Vila Blake

  Anger, Wind, Black

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• As anger is a passion, it is to be ruled; as it is a weak passion, he is weak who rules it not.

  James Vila Blake

  Anger, Passion, Management

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• The greatness of common sense, and its title to reverence, appear in this, that it deals with vast complexity, that is, with the innumerable elements of a situation. Common sense discerns and judges a path through this knotted and tangled maze.

  James Vila Blake

  Greatness, Common Sense, Judging

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