James F Blake Quotes & Sayings

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

I understood more clearly than ever that the line between a noble revolutionary and a lowdown bandit was the line between war and peace. — James Carlos Blake

I mean to tell you, the Law's notion of justice is more cold-blooded than any outlaw I ever knew. And I mean 'outlaw,' not criminal. 'Criminal' doesn't distinguish between guys like men and the guys who own the banks and insurance companies and stock markets, who own the factories and coal mines and oil fields, who own the goddamn Law. I once said to John that being an outlaw was about the only way left for a man to hold on to his self-respect, and he said Ain't that the sad truth. The girls laughed along with us because they knew it wasn't a joke ... John got the publicity because he loved it ... he carried on like the whole thing was an adventure movie and he was Douglas Fairbanks. He wanted to to be a 'star.' That's how he was. Not me. I never even liked having my picture taken. All I ever wanted was to show the bastards who own the law that it didn't mean they owned me. — James Carlos Blake

Some of us are always in the borderlands no matter where we might be on the map. — James Carlos Blake

The notion that we've made vast moral progress and are now a less violent species is belied by our awesome powers of destruction, our military might, police forces as well-armed as soldiers. Without the threat of such violent force behind it, all law would be meaningless. I prefer stories that remind us of that. At its core, history is a story of violence at work. It all comes down to the old saw that, however much you can gain with a kind word, you can gain more with a kind word and a gun. — James Carlos Blake

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

If you're afraid to defend your convictions because you might get your ass kicked for it, you're not really fit to advocate for them. — James Carlos Blake

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

I think when you're learning an instrument, you are restricted because much of it is the noise of individual theory and your ability to play the instrument. — James Blake

When you make a deal you stick to it. Rock-hard rule. You don't renege, you don't sell out. You hold up your end and expect the other party to do the same. If the other party doesn't, you're entitled to deal with every man of it as you see fit in order to set things right. No
you're more than entitled. You're obligated. Or the rule would mean nothing. — James Carlos Blake

To say that a great genius is mad, while at the same time recognizing his artistic merit, is no better than to say he is rheumatic or diabetic. — James Joyce

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

Those who live with insomnia and who consider sleep both an enemy and a gift will understand the following. Some of us cannot comprehend how anyone except the very good or those who have no conscience at all can sleep from dark to dawn without dreaming or waking. We hear William Blake's tiger padding softly through a green jungle, his stripes glowing, his whiskers spotted with gore. Psychoanalysis does no good. Neither does a health regimen that induces physical exhaustion. The only solution that is guaranteed is the one provided by our old friend Morpheus, who requires our souls in the bargain. — James Lee Burke

A man who can laugh at himself is truly blessed, for he will never lack for amusement. — James Carlos Blake

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

As we pulled out of Zacatecas, the air was thick with the odors of smoldering ash, bloody dust, putrefying flesh. The rich ripe smells of triumph. — James Carlos Blake

Just because it's a world of thieves out there don't mean there ain't no rules to it. — James Carlos Blake

Violence is the most elemental truth of life. It's the central shaper of history, the ultimate determiner of whether A or B is going to get his way. — James Carlos Blake

Never did I fight for the poor. I fought against the rich
which of course isn't at all the same thing. In any case, the fighting was the point. You don't fight to become free
to fight is to be free. A man with a gun and the will to use it can't be mastered, he can only be killed. — James Carlos Blake

The shed of leaves became a cascade of red and gold and after a time the trees stood skeletal against a sky of weathered tin. The land lay bled of its colors. The nights lengthened, went darker, brightened in their clustered stars. The chilled air smelled of wood smoke, of distances and passing time. Frost glimmered on the morning fields. Crows called across the pewter afternoons. — James Carlos Blake

He finally comprehended that the sole impossibility regarding human sorrow is to arrive at some unsurpassable limit to it. — James Carlos Blake

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

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

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

I've never been given to casual use of vulgar language
unwarranted profanity implies mental laziness
but there's no other way to say this: a guy tries to fuck me ... well, fuck him. — James Carlos Blake

In 1862, the Scottish mathematician James Clerk Maxwell developed a set of fundamental equations that unified electricity and magnetism. On his deathbed, he coughed up a strange sort of confession, declaring that "something within him" discovered the famous equations, not he. He admitted he had no idea how ideas actually came to him - they simply came to him. William Blake related a similar experience, reporting of his long narrative poem Milton: "I have written this poem from immediate dictation twelve or sometimes twenty lines at a time without premeditation and even against my will." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe claimed to have written his novella The Sorrows of Young Werther with practically no conscious input, as though he were holding a pen that moved on its own. — David Eagleman

I'd like to think the scientists need us - but do they? Did Newton need Blake? — James Merrill

Like Villa, I believed that even though some men did not deserve to go on living, they still deserved to be remembered at their best. — James Carlos Blake

In terms of writing more club tracks, writing more electronically influenced - I feel like it was all electronically influenced, but now that influence has come to me in a different way. — James Blake

If a woman has a good ass the rest of her wil be nicely configured too, except for maybe the face. The face is always on its own. — James Carlos Blake