Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Constancy
Through perils both of wind and limb,
Through thick and thin she follow’d him.
Butler—Hudibras. Pt. I. Canto II. L. 369.
’Tis often constancy to change the mind.
Hoole—Metastasio. Sieves.
Changeless march the stars above,
Changeless morn succeeds to even;
And the everlasting hills,
Changeless watch the changeless heaven.
Charles Kingsley—Saint’s Tragedy. Act II. Sc. 2.
Abra was ready ere I call’d her name;
And, though I call’d another, Abra came.
Prior—Solomon on the Vanity of the World. Bk. II. L. 364.
Now from head to foot
I am marble-constant: now the fleeting moon
No planet is of mine.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act V. Sc. 2. L. 238.
O constancy, be strong upon my side,
Set a huge mountain ’tween my heart and tongue!
I have a man’s mind, but a woman’s might.
Julius Cæsar. Act II. Sc. 4. L. 7.
I could be well moved if I were as you;
If I could pray to move, prayers would move me;
But I am constant as the northern star,
Of whose true fix’d and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament.
Julius Cæsar. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 58.
He that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven,
And fire us hence like foxes.
King Lear. Act V. Sc. 3. L. 22.
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever,
One foot in sea and one on shore;
To one thing constant never.
Much Ado About Nothing. Act II. Sc. 3. L. 64. See also Thos. Percy—The Friar of Orders Gray.
If ever thou shalt love,
In the sweet pangs of it remember me;
For such as I am all true lovers are;
Unstaid and skittish in all motions else,
Save in the constant image of the creature
That is belov’d.
Twelfth Night. Act II. Sc. 4. L. 15.
I would have men of such constancy put to sea, that their business might be everything and their intent everywhere; for that’s it that always makes a good voyage of nothing.
Twelfth Night. Act II. Sc. 4. L. 77.
O heaven! were man
But constant, he were perfect. That one error
Fills him with faults; makes him run through all the sins:
Inconstancy falls off ere it begins.
Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act V. Sc. 4. L. 109.
Through thick and thin, both over banck and bush,
In hope her to attaine by hooke or crooke.
Spenser—Faerie Queene. Bk. III. Canto I. St. 17.
Out upon it! I have lov’d
Three whole days together;
And am like to love three more,
If it prove fair weather.
Sir John Suckling—Constancy.