S. Austin Allibone, comp. Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay. 1880.
Consistency
This mode of arguing from your having done any thing in a certain line to the necessity of doing every thing has political consequences of other moment than those of a logical fallacy.
Edmund Burke: Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, 1791.
Steady to my principles, and not dispirited with my afflictions, I have, by the blessing of God on my endeavours, overcome all difficulties; and, in some measure, acquitted myself of the debt which I owed the public when I undertook this work.
This discovers to us the expedient of a steadiness and consistency of conduct, and renders the having willed a thing a motive with us to will it still, until some cogent reason shall occur to the contrary.
Another of these pretenders to being, or being thought to be, wise, prides himself on what he calls his consistency,—on his never changing his opinions or plans; which, as long as man is fallible, and circumstances change, is the wisdom of one either too dull to detect his mistakes, or too obstinate to own them.
Richard Whately: Annot. on Bacon’s Essay, Of Seeming Wise.
