Inconsistency Quotes

• We despise all reverences and all objects of reverence which are outside the pale of our list of sacred things. And yet, with strange inconsistency, we are shocked when other people despise and defile the things which are holy to us.

  Mark Twain

  People, Religion, Sacred Things

  Mark Twain (2015). “Following the Equator: "A Journey Around the World"”, p.544, eKitap Projesi

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• The signature of mediocrity is not an unwillingness to change. The signature of mediocrity is inconsistency.

  James C. Collins

  Signatures, Mediocrity

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• There is nothing constant in this world but inconsistency.

  Jonathan Swift

  World, This World, Constant

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• There are those who would misteach us that to stick in a rut is consistency - and a virtue, and that to climb out of the rut is inconsistency - and a vice.

  Mark Twain

  Life, Leadership, Consistency

  Mark Twain (1992). “Twain: Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, and Essays, Volume 1: 1852-1890”, p.1192, Library of America

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• Nothing that isn't a real crime makes a man appear so contemptible and little in the eyes of the world as inconsistency.

  Joseph Addison

  Real, Eye, Men

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• There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.

  Jane Austen

  Character, Thinking, People

  Jane Austen (1853). “Pride and Prejudice”, p.119

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• It's the real world, full of gaps and inconsistencies and anticlimaxes.

  Haruki Murakami

  Real, World, Gaps

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• As far as consistency of thought goes, I prefer inconsistency.

  John Cage

  Consistency

  Interview with John Corbett, 1989.

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• Firmness of purpose is one of the most necessary sinews of character, and one of the best instruments of success. Without it, genius wastes its efforts in a maze of inconsistencies.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Success, Character, Effort

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• The personality is defined by its inconsistencies, not its consistencies. It's what makes us unique and who we are.

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Unique, Personality, Consistency

  Sherrilyn Kenyon (2011). “The Guardian”, p.11, Macmillan

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• Children are unpredictable. You never know what inconsistency they are going to catch you in next.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Education, Children, Parenting

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• Such is the inconsistency of real love, that it is always awake to suspicion, however unreasonable; always requiring new assurances from the object of its interest.

  Ann Radcliffe

  Love, Real, Relapse

  Ann Radcliffe (1998). “The Mysteries of Udolpho”, p.317, OUP Oxford

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• A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Silly, Science, Political

  Essays "Self-Reliance" (1841)

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• Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Life, Wise, Wisdom

  Essays "Self-Reliance" (1841)

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• Mutability of temper and inconsistency with ourselves is the greatest weakness of human nature.

  Joseph Addison

  Nature, Weakness, Literature

  Joseph Addison (1828). “A second selection from the papers of Addison in the Spectator and Guardian, for the use of young persons, by E. Berens”, p.40

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• Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can.

  Jane Austen

  Laughing, Nonsense, Whim

  Jane Austen (1853). “Pride and Prejudice”, p.49

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• I ought not to doubt the steadiness of your affection. Yet such is the inconsistency of real love, that it is always awake to suspicion, however unreasonable; always requiring new assurances from the object of its interest, and thus it is, that i always feel revived, as by a new convinction, when your words tell me I am dear to you; and wanting these, I relapse into doubt and often into despondency.

  Ann Radcliffe

  Real, Doubt, Affection

  Ann Radcliffe (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated)”, p.716, Delphi Classics

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• One cannot live without inconsistency.

  Carl Jung

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• Mankind is made up of inconsistencies, and no man acts invariably up to his predominant character. The wisest man sometimes acts weakly, and the weakest sometimes wisely.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Character, Men, Wisest Man

  Lord Chesterfield, David Roberts (2008). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.77, Oxford University Press

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• Man prays for mercy, but is unwilling to extend it to others. Why then should man expect mercy from God? It is
  unfair to expect something that you are not willing to give.

  Isaac Bashevis Singer

  Men, Vegetarianism, Giving

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• With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wall, Adventure, Consistency

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Self-Reliance, the Over-Soul, and Other Essays”, p.25, Coyote Canyon Press

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• New ideas are difficult just because they are new. Repetition has somehow plastered over the gaps and inconsistencies in the old ones, and the new cannot penetrate.

  Joan Robinson

  Ideas, Gaps, Repetition

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• No author ever drew a character consistent to human nature, but he was forced to ascribe to it many inconsistencies.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Nature, Character, Authorship

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• In a branch of medicine rife with paradoxes, contradictions, inconsistencies, and illogic, episiotomy crowns them all. The major argument for episiotomy is that it protects the perineum from injury, a protection accomplished by slicing through perineal skin, connective, tissue, and muscle.

  Henci Goer

  Medicine, Skins, Crowns

  Henci Goer (1995). “Obstetric Myths Versus Research Realities: A Guide to the Medical Literature”, p.276, Greenwood Publishing Group

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• Our ideas must agree with realities, be such realities concrete or abstract

  William James

  Truth, Reality, Ideas

  William James (2007). “Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking”, p.128, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

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