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.
These same men who enthusiastically preach loyal consistency to church and party are always read 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.
Mark Twain
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