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Then he was faithful too, as well as amorous; So that no sort of female could complain,
Although they’re now and then a little clamourous, He never put the pretty souls in pain;
His heart was one of those which most enamour us, Wax to receive, and marble to retain:
He was a lover of the good old school, Who still become more constant as they cool.
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) English poet
“Beppo,” st. 34 (1818)
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PROTEUS: ’Tis true. O heaven, were man
But constant, he were perfect; that one error
Fills him with faults, makes him run through all th’ sins;
Inconstancy falls off ere it begins.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 5, sc. 4, l. 118ff (5.4.118-121) (c. 1590)
In our judgment of men, we are to beware of giving any great importance to occasional acts. By acts of occasional virtue weak men endeavour to redeem themselves in their own estimation, vain men to exalt themselves in that of mankind.
Henry Taylor (1800-1886) English dramatist, poet, bureaucrat, man of letters The Statesman: An Ironical Treatise on the Art of Succeeding, ch. 3 (1836)
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No well-informed person has declared a change of opinion to be inconstancy.
[Nemo doctus unquam mutationem consilii inconstantiam dixit esse.]
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher Epistulae ad Atticum [Letters to Atticus], Book 16, Letter 7 (16.7) (59-54 BC)
Alt. trans.: No philosopher ever yet -- and there has been a great deal written upon the subject -- defined a mere change of plan as vacillation. [Nemo doctus umquam (multa autem de hoc genere scripta sunt) mutationem consili inconstantiam dixit esse.]
There is no such thing as an achieved liberty; like electricity, there can be no substantial storage and it must be generated as it is enjoyed, or the lights go out.
Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954) US Supreme Court Justice (1941-54), lawyer, jurist, politician
“The Task of Maintaining Our Liberties: The Role of the Judiciary,” speech, Boston (24 Aug 1953)
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Dinner address at the American Bar Association Diamond Jubilee dinner. Reprinted in the American Bar Association Journal (Nov 1953) [citation 39 A.B.A. J. 961 (1953)].
HENRY: A speaker is but a prater, a rhyme is but a ballad, a good leg will fall, a straight back will stoop, a black beard will turn white, a curled pate will grow bald, a fair face will wither, a full eye will wax hollow, but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon, or rather the sun and not the moon, for it shines bright and never changes but keeps his course truly. If thou would have such a one, take me.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet Henry V, Act 5, sc. 2, l. 164ff (5.2.164) (1599)
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Quoted by Walter Mondale as a eulogy for Hubert Humphrey.
But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task, if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us, that when the storm is long past, the ocean is flat again.
John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) English economist A Tract on Monetary Reform, ch. 3 (1923)
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