A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesman and philosophers and divines. Speak what you think in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said today. Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead. Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
Consistency is the enemy of enterprise, just as symmetry is the enemy of art.
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.