“You cannot consistently perform in a manner which is inconsistent with the way you see yourself.”

“Courage is the mother of all virtues because without it, you cannot consistently perform the others.”

“Having, then, once introduced an element of inconsistency into his system, he was far too consistent not to be inconsistent consistently, and he lapsed ere long into an amiable indifferentism which to outward appearance differed but little from the indifferentism …”

“And since you know you cannot see yourself,so well as by reflection, I, your glass,will modestly discover to yourself,that of yourself which you yet know not of.”

“My parents were consistently inconsistent.”

“Noone has yet succeeded in inventing a philosophy at once credible and self-consistent. Locke aimed at credibility, and achieved it at the expense of consistency. Most of the great philosophers have done the opposite. A philosophy which is not self-consistent cannot be wholly true, but a philosophy which is self-consistent can very well be wholly false. The most fruitful philosophies have contained glaring inconsistencies, but for that very reason have been partially true. There is no reason to suppose that a self-consistent system contains more truth than one which, like Locke’s, is more or less wrong.”