Precept and Practice – SEPTEMBER 14 – Consistency

I think you will find that people who honestly mean to be true really contradict themselves much more rarely than those who try to be ‘consistent.’   But a great many things we say can be made to appear contradictory, simply because they are partial views of a truth, and may often look unlike at first, as a front view of a face and its profile often do.

(Oliver Wendell Holmes – The Professor at the Breakfast Table.)

Of course Si wasn’t exactly consistent in this, but, as he used to say, it’s the consistent men who keep the devil busy, because no one’s ever really consistent except in his cussedness.   It’s been my experience that consistency is simply a steel hoop around a small mind it keeps it from expanding.

(G. H. Lorimer – Old Gorgon Graham’s Letters to his Son)

Don’t be ‘consistent,’ – but be simply true.

(Oliver Wendell Holmes – The Professor at the Breakfast Table)

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From the Introduction to Precept and Practice

The kindly welcome given to my other little books, ‘Being and Doing’ and ‘Character and Conduct,’ must be my excuse for adding another collection of extracts to the number now in circulation.

The quotations are gathered from the books of many earnest thinkers, and deal with Life in all its length and breadth, with ourselves, our characters, our plain unvarnished faults and weaknesses, our often untoward circumstances, and with all that drags us down;-  with our purposes, our religion, our love and friendships, and with all that uplifts us;-  with our relation to others, our influence and responsibilities, and finally with those stages of our journey which bring us to the Road’s Last Turn and to the Silent Land.

CONSTANCE  M. WHISHAW