Firmness in decision is often merely a form of stupidity. It indicates an inability to think the same thing out twice.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
A Little Book in C Major, ch. 5, § 30 (1916)
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Variant:
FIRMNESS: A form of stupidity: proof of an inability to think the same thing out twice.
[A Book of Burlesques, "The Jazz Webster" (1924)]
Quotations about:
reconsideration
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I hav lived in this world jist long enuff tew look karefully the seckond time into things that i am the most certain ov the fust time.
[I have lived in this world just long enough to look carefully the second time into things that I am the most certain of the first time.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Everybody’s Friend, Or; Josh Billing’s Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor, ch. 152 “Affurisms: Chicken Feed” (1874)
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What are the choices that we must make if we are now to succeed, and not to fail? […] Two types of choices seem to me to have been crucial to tipping their outcomes towards success or failure: long-term planning, and willingness to reconsider core values. On reflection, we can also recognize the crucial role of these same two choices for the outcomes of our individual lives.
One of those choices has depended on the courage to practice long-term thinking, and to make bold, courageous, anticipatory decisions at a time when problems have become perceptible but before they have reached crisis proportions. […] The other crucial choice illuminated by the past involves the courage to make painful decisions about values. Which of the values that formerly served a society well can continue to be maintained under new changed circumstances? Which of these treasured values must instead be jettisoned and replaced with different approaches?
Jared Diamond (b. 1937) American geographer, historian, ornithologist, author
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, ch. 16 “The World as a Polder” (2005)
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The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful is the cause of half their errors.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) English philosopher and economist
On Liberty, ch. 2 “Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion” (1859)
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