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OBSTINACY
[ Also see Complacency Docility Firmness Independence Obduracy Opposition Perseverance Perverseness Rebellion Resolution Self-will Stubbornness ]

Obstinacy and vehemency in opinion are the surest proofs of stupidity.
      - Bernard Barton

People first abandon reason, and then become obstinate; and the deeper they are in error the more angry they are.
      - Hugh Blair

Obstinacy in a bad cause is but constancy in a good.
      - Sir Thomas Browne

Obstinacy, sir, is certainly a great vice; and in the changeful state of political affairs it is frequently the cause of great mischief. It happens, however, very unfortunately, that almost the whole line of the great and masculine virtues--constancy, gravity, magnanimity, fortitude, fidelity, and firmness--are closely allied to this disagreeable quality, of which you have so just an abhorrence; and in their excess all these virtues very easily fall into it.
      - Edmund Burke

Fools are stubborn in their way,
  As coins are harden'd by th' allay;
    And obstinacy's ne'er so stiff
      As when 'tis in a wrong belief.
      - Samuel Butler (1)

I believe that obstinacy, or the dread of control and discipline, arises not so much from self-willedness as from a conscious defect of voluntary power; as foolhardiness is not seldom the disguise of conscious timidity.
      - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

If it be true that men of strong imaginations are usually dogmatists--and I am inclined to think it is so--it ought to follow that men of weak imaginations are the reverse; in which case we should have some compensation for stupidity. But it unfortunately happens that no dogmatist is more obstinate or less open to conviction than a fool.
      - Charles Caleb Colton

His still refuted quirks he still repeats.
  New-raised objections with new quibbles meets;
    Till sinking in the quicksand he defends,
      He dies disputing, and the contest ends.
      - William Cowper

A narrow mind begets obstinacy; we do not easily believe what we cannot see.
      - John Dryden

Stiff opinion, always in the wrong.
      - John Dryden

Obstinacy in opinions holds the dogmatist in the chains of error, without hope of emancipation.
      - Joseph Glanvill

Whatever excites the spirit of contradiction is capable of producing the last effects of heroism; which is only the highest pitch of obstinacy, in a good or bad cause, in wisdom or folly.
      - William Hazlitt (1)

There is something in obstinacy which differs from every other passion. Whenever it fails, it never recovers, but either breaks like iron, or crumbles sulkily away, like a fractured arch. Most other passions have their periods of fatigue and rest, their sufferings and their cure; but obstinacy has no resource, and the first wound is mortal.
      - Samuel Johnson (a/k/a Dr. Johnson) ("The Great Cham of Literature")

Narrowness of mind is often the cause of obstinacy; we do not easily believe beyond what we see.
      - Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld

Obstinacy is the strength of the weak. Firmness founded upon principle, upon the truth and right, order and law, duty and generosity, is the obstinacy of sages.
      - Johann Kaspar Lavater (John Caspar Lavater)

The obstinacy of the indolent and weak is less conquerable than that of the fiery and bold.
      - Johann Kaspar Lavater (John Caspar Lavater)

Firmness or stiffness of the mind is not from adherence to truth, but submission to prejudice.
      - John Locke (1)

Obstinacy and contention are common qualities, most appearing in, and best becoming, a mean and illiterate soul.
      - Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Obstinacy and heat in argument are surest proofs of folly. Is there anything so stubborn, obstinate, disdainful, contemplative, grave, or serious, as an ass?
      - Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Obstinacy is ever most positive when it is most in the wrong.
      - Madame Suzanne Curchod Necker

Most other passions have their periods of fatigue and rest, their suffering and their cure; but obstinacy has no resource, and the first wound is mortal.
      - Thomas Paine

An obstinate man does not hold opinions, but they hold him.
      - Alexander Pope

You may as well
  Forbid the sea for to obey the moon,
    As, or by oath, remove, or counsel, shake
      The fabric of his folly, whose foundation
        Is pil'd upon his faith.
      - William Shakespeare

There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake.
      - Jonathan Swift


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Last Revised: 2018 December 9




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