| 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. - "Consistency," Mark Twain's Speeches (1923) |
 AI image created by Barbara Schmidt |
|
These same men who enthusiastically preach loyal consistency to church
and party are always ready and willing and anxious to persuade a Chinaman
or an Indian or a Kanaka to desert his church, or a fellow-American to
desert his party. The man who deserts to them is all that is high and
pure and beautiful- apparently; the man who deserts from them is all that
is foul and despicable. This is Consistency with a capital C. ...I am persuaded that the world has been tricked into adopting some
false and most pernicious notions about consistency--and to such a degree
that the average man has turned the rights and wrongs of things entirely
around and is proud to be "consistent," unchanging, immovable,
fossilized, where it should be his humiliation. |
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