Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

S. Austin Allibone, comp. Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay. 1880.

Inconsistency

Mutability of temper and inconsistency with ourselves is the greatest weakness of human nature.

Nothing that is not a real crime makes a man appear so contemptible and little in the eyes of the world as inconstancy.

Men talk as if they believed in God, but they live as if they thought there was none: their vows and promises are no more than words of course.

We understand what we ought to do; but when we deliberate we play booty against ourselves: our consciences direct us one way, our corruptions hurry us another.

Only imagine a man acting for one single day on the supposition that all his neighbours believe all that they profess and act up to all that they believe. Imagine a man acting on the supposition that he may safely offer the deadliest injuries and insults to everybody who says that revenge is sinful; or that he may safely intrust all his property without security to any person who says that it is wrong to steal. Such a character would be too absurd for the wildest farce.