James Vila Blake Quotes

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.

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.

Now, if we understand what unlucky persons are, we shall see that they are to be shunned, or that we are to consort with them only out of kindness or from sympathy, but without joining our interests with theirs; for they are persons who are not harmonious with the condition of things around them, and are as much at issue with life as a bird who should try to live in the water, or a fish to float in the air.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

An enemy will train us in watchfulness;

for if he be wary to seize on every error and trip us, we shall be more heedful to expose nothing, and this will drive us to prudence and thoughtfulness.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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