On Being Consistent

For John, BLUF:  Consistency is not always good.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

On City Life this morning Host George Anthes was complimenting Guest Richard Howe on his consistency.  Consistency has not always been admired here in the Commonwealth Massachusetts.  Perhaps the most famous comment on "consistency" is from Mr Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25 1803 – April 27 1882):

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.  With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.  He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall.  Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — 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.

Here is Wikipedia's description of the source of the quote, Essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson's Self-Reliance;

Self-Reliance is an essay written by American transcendentalist philosopher and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson.  It contains the most thorough statement of one of Emerson's recurrent themes, the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency, and follow his or her own instincts and ideas. It is the source of one of Emerson's most famous quotations:  "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."

Regards  —  Cliff