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Consistency   /kənsˈɪstənsi/   Listen
Consistency

noun
1.
The property of holding together and retaining its shape.  Synonyms: body, consistence, eubstance.  "When the dough has enough consistency it is ready to bake"
2.
A harmonious uniformity or agreement among things or parts.  Synonym: consistence.
3.
Logical coherence and accordance with the facts.
4.
(logic) an attribute of a logical system that is so constituted that none of the propositions deducible from the axioms contradict one another.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Consistency" Quotes from Famous Books



... Cuchulain, increasing the effect of both. Laeg seems quite unable to see his master's point of view, and he serves as a foil for Ferdia, just as the latter's inferiority increases the character of Cuchulain. The consistency of the whole, and the way in which our sympathy is awakened for Ferdia contrast with the somewhat disconnected character of the L.U. version, which as it stands gives a poor idea of the defeated champion; although, as Mr. Nutt suggests, ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy

... delightful inconsistency, they may say that some one has been working magic to cause the accident. In short, it is impossible to make out a theory of sickness which will satisfy our European conception of consistency."[55] ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... to which speculation and theory are applied, that nature proceeds in her course, whilst the curious are busied in the search of her principles. The peasant, or the child, can reason, and judge, and speak his language with a discernment, a consistency, and a regard to analogy, which perplex the logician, the moralist, and the grammarian, when they would find the principle upon which the proceeding is founded, or when they would bring to general rule, what is so familiar, and so well sustained in particular cases. The felicity of ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.

... allegory altogether and has become a novel. This is perhaps more noticeable in the Second Part than in the First. The First Part is indeed almost a perfect allegory; although even there, from time to time, the earnestness and rush of the writer's spirit oversteps the bounds of consistency and happily forgets the moral because the story is so interesting, or forgets for a moment the story because the moral is so important. In the Second Part the two characters fall apart more definitely. Now you have delightful pieces of crude human nature, naive and ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman

... there is good reason for its presence. It is especially beneficial in preparing the way for the easy digestion of heavier foods. Veribest Soups are scientifically cooked and seasoned. For use, heat the soup and dilute it to the preferred consistency. ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various

... language, which, in imitation of the ancients, is through the whole dialogue remarkably simple and unadorned, seldom heightened by epithets, or varied by figures; yet sometimes metaphors find admission, even where their consistency is not accurately preserved. Thus Samson ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... of the pamphlet entitled Peace before All! For the sake of his opinions, for the sake of consistency with the profound, the exalted faith to which his views give rise within him, my husband ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc

... impunity. Many deputies are men of high integrity; but virtue in a large assembly is of small force without organization, and, moreover, a group of legislators leagued together as a vigilance committee would have neither consistency nor durability, which the discipline of party can alone effect. Corruption of this kind, which has undermined the republic, could not co-exist with party government. A party whose ministers or supporters ...
— Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government • T. R. Ashworth and H. P. C. Ashworth

... is a dreffle smart man: He's ben on all sides thet give places or pelf; But consistency still wuz a part of his plan,— He's been true to one party—an' thet is himself;— So John P. Robinson he Sez he shall vote ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... In reading the criticisms which were occasioned by the dramatic productions of the age of Louis XIV, one is surprised to remark the great stress which the public laid on the probability of the plot, and the importance which was attached to the perfect consistency of the characters, and to their doing nothing which could not be easily explained and understood. The value which was set upon the forms of language at that period, and the paltry strife about words with which dramatic authors were assailed, are no less surprising. ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... believe it necessary to be so very respectful, consistency should lead you to refrain from reproving ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley

... them; and which, therefore, inflames covetousness, and accustoms the mind to the contemplation of unjust gains, until it is ready to resort to any unjust means of securing them. Do you say there are honest gamblers? The term is a contradiction. You might, with equal consistency, talk of truthful liars. To get your money, or any thing else, without rendering an equitable return, is the core of all dishonesty, whether in the gamester, the pickpocket, the man who cheats in trade, or the boy who robs ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge

... at last, a whole is likely to get itself constructed. Thus, impelled by great and conflicting forces, now obliquely, now backward, now upward, yet, upon the whole, onward, the new Society moves along its predestined orbit, gathering consistency and strength as it goes. Society, civilization, perhaps, but hardly humanity. The people has hardly begun to extricate itself from the clods in which it lies buried. There are only nobles, priests, and, latterly, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... conform to the usage of the Old. "This will prevent illiterate persons, who compose a large part of the readers of the Scriptures, from mistaking the characters. Every obstacle to a right understanding of the Scriptures, however small, should be removed, when it can be done in consistency with truth." Like the American Committee he preferred Holy Spirit to Holy Ghost, and was willing to drop the title Saint from the names of the evangelists, and having all the authority necessary he made these changes. In other instances there appears ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder

... controversy was just then raging round Einstein's ideas. I usually took sides with the supporters of Einstein, for it seemed to me that Einstein had carried the existing mode of scientific thinking to its logical conclusions, whereas I missed this consistency among his opponents. At the same time I found that the effect of this theory, when its implications were fully developed, was to make everything seem so 'relative' that no reliable world-outlook was left. This ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs

... acting with a good motive and for a righteous purpose; we rest satisfied that "if we only knew everything he would come out blameless." This arises from a just and a sound view of human character, and its general consistency with itself. The same reasoning may surely be applied with all humility and reverence, to the works and the intentions of the great Being who has implanted in our minds the principles which lead to that just and sound view of the ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham

... know. This is an abandonment of the fundamental principle which Ibsen over and over again emphatically expressed—namely, that any symbolism his work might be found to contain was entirely incidental, and subordinate to the truth and consistency of his picture of life. Even when he dallied with the supernatural, as in The Master Builder and Little Eyolf, he was always careful, as I have tried to show, not to overstep decisively the boundaries of the natural. Here, ...
— When We Dead Awaken • Henrik Ibsen

... no objection, no scruple apparently, to introducing the notorious Julius II. into his Feast of the Rosary, some ten years later. There has perhaps been a tendency to read the intention of these designs too much in the light of after events: and by so doing a great slur is cast on Duerer's consistency; for, had these designs the significance read into them, he must be supposed an altogether convinced enemy of the Church; and the tremendous salaams which he afterwards made to her in far more important works ought, to logical minds, ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore

... view did not occur to him; it was merely because Fanny was not May, and May was what he had wanted and did want. Fanny he left to the gradual, uphill, but probably finally successful, wooing of Jimmy Benyon. Even with regard to May herself he very nearly achieved consistency. His promise to be often at Quisante's house had been flagrantly and conspicuously broken. Quisante had pressed him often; on the three occasions on which he had called May had let him see how gladly she would welcome him more often. He had not gone more often. He was not sulking, ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope

... several we had knocked down. They measured twenty-eight inches across the wings, which were of a leathery consistency, the bodies being covered with grey hair. We found their stomachs filled with the pulp and seeds of fruits, with the remains of a few ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston

... (fortunately or unfortunately) monopolised by any political party, and being (no doubt unfortunately) often condescended to by both, it is not surprising to find Peacock—especially with his noble disregard of apparent consistency and the inveterate habit of pillar-to-post joking, which has been commented on—distributing his shafts with great impartiality on Trojan and Greek; on the opponents of reform in his earlier manhood, and on the believers in progress during his later; on virtual representation ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... working also. From the result of his whole performance I was confirmed in this opinion; that we must acknowledge the work of both grace and free will in the conversion of a sinner; and so likewise in all other events, the consistency of the infallibility of God's foreknowledge at least (though not with any absolute, but conditional predestination) with the liberty of man's will, and the contingency of inferior causes and effects. These, I say, ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton

... chicken. Have two quarts of stock left when chicken is done. Remove chicken and cut into medium-sized pieces. Into the stock pour gradually one cup of corn meal or farina, stirring until it thickens. If not the proper consistency, add a little more meal. Season with one tablespoon of chili sauce, three tablespoons of tomato catsup, salt, one teaspoon of Spanish pepper sauce. Simmer gently thirty minutes, then add chicken. Serve ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum

... the porch and not upon a concrete verandah, heaps up some earth in front of him. He wets this until it has the consistency of mud. He then places in this little mound a mango stone and covers the whole with a cloth. He plays the "bean" and takes away the cloth when the heap is found to be as before. He takes the lid of his basket, and covering it with the cloth, places it over ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson

... slowly, that from the first day that you came into this world, nay, before your life was an uttered fact in this world, God has been loving you, and seeking you, and planning for you, and making every effort that He could make in consistency with the free will with which He endowed you from the centre of His own life, that you might become His and therefore might become truly yourself? Through all the years in which you were obstinate and ...
— Addresses • Phillips Brooks

... WISH others to act in the given situation? It would be quite possible for a lustful man to be willing that unrestrained lust should be the general rule; he would be much more comfortable and freer if it were. There is nothing in the law of consistency to direct him; men might be consistently bad as well as consistently good. We have still no criterion, only an appeal to coolness, to detachment ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... state of things I quite approve," returned Mrs. Reed; "had I sought all England over, I could scarcely have found a system more exactly fitting a child like Jane Eyre. Consistency, my dear Mr. Brocklehurst; I advocate consistency in ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... as consistency. There exists no more terrible person than the man who remarks: "Well, you may say what you like, but at any rate I have been consistent." This argument is generally advanced as the palliation for some notorious failure. And this is natural ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook

... resumed his first position so firmly that Franklin and Deane in their turn agreed to omit both articles. But they stipulated that Lee should arrange the matter with Gerard, since, as they had just agreed in writing to retain both, they "could not with any consistency make a point of their being expunged," and they felt that the business of a change at this stage might be disagreeable. In fact Lee found it so. When he called on Gerard and requested the omission of both, Gerard replied that the king had already approved the treaty, ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... consolatory. Only one of the doctors declared there were no signs of poison; the rest were of the opposite opinion. When the body of the Dauphin was opened, everybody was terrified. His viscera were all dissolved; his heart had no consistency; its substance flowed through the hands of those who tried to hold it; an intolerable odour, too, filled the apartment. The majority of the doctors declared they saw in all this the effect of a very subtle and very violent poison, which had consumed all the interior of the body, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... his exuberance, he seized a handful of clammy soil that was almost the consistency of mud, and playfully tossed it at Lew Veazie. It missed Veazie, and, by an infortuitous fate, took Buck Badger smack in the eye. Badger, who had seen Pike's antics, clapped a hand to his eye with a ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish

... followed Clerk Henriet, Laurence looked at the round pellet in his hand. It was white, soft like ripe fruit, of an elastic consistency, and of ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... of Hardy. The Immanent Will is God, as Hardy conceives Him, neither rational nor entirely conscious, frustrating His own seeming ends, without irony and without compassion, and yet perhaps evolving like His world, clearing like men's visions, moving towards consistency. The Sinister Angel and the Ironic Angel are moods well known to Hardy, but not loved by him. The Spirit of the Years that sees how poor human nature collides with accident, or the inevitable, and is bruised, is Hardy's reasoned philosophy. The Spirit of Pities (not always, as he says, ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby

... Petersburg. "I have expressly left all that blank in order that she may settle it according to her interests and her own good pleasure. When the negotiations for peace have advanced to a certain stage of consistency, it will no longer depend upon the Austrians to break them off if we declare our views unanimously as to Poland. She cannot rely any further upon France, which happens to be in such a fearful state of exhaustion that it could not give any help to Spain, which was on the point of declaring war ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... English pronunciation by students of the subject. It is not easy to be sure how accurate a phonetic observer and transcriber G. W. was, but if we make some allowance for misprints, we find a certain consistency in his transcriptions, and an apparent freedom from any bias given by the traditional spelling, which make one think he was moderately reliable. In this connexion it is of some importance to find out, if possible, where he came from. He shows ...
— Magazine, or Animadversions on the English Spelling (1703) • G. W.

... had been made use of, should persist in visiting the scene of crime and calling attention to the spot where that dagger had fallen. And so with her manner before her examiners. Baffling as that manner was, it still showed streaks of consistency, when you thought of it as the cloak of a subtle, unprincipled woman, who sees amongst her interlocutors the guilty man whom by a word she can destroy, but whom she exerts herself to save, even at the cost of a series of bizarre explanations. She was playing with ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green

... Ovid, of Plato's Phaedrus and the Ecclesiazusae, now within the reach of every school-boy, have been suppressed, then and not till then can a 'plain and literal' rendering of the Arabian Nights be denied with any colour of consistency to adult readers. I am far from saying that there are not valid reasons for thus dealing with Hellenic and Graeco-Roman and Oriental literature in its totality. But let folk reckon what Anglo Saxon Puritanism logically involves. If they desire an Anglo-Saxon Index Librorum Prohibitorum, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... filtering through membranes. The gastric juice has no action on starchy foods, neither does it act on fats, except to dissolve the albuminous walls of the fat cells. The fat itself is thus set free in the form of minute globules. The whole contents of the stomach now assume the appearance and the consistency of a thick soup, usually of a grayish ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell

... are learning the same lesson in our forestry. We have the lesson still to learn in remaining mines, oil-lands, water-powers, and phosphate-beds. Nothing in the statesmanship of President Roosevelt will more surely win him laurels in the future than his pluck and consistency in forwarding this policy, which stands for the whole people and for the future. It is as serenely above party as it is above corporate ...
— The Conflict between Private Monopoly and Good Citizenship • John Graham Brooks

... with a clear exposition of their meaning;—a practice to which Swift was indebted for the lucid and perspicuous character of his writings, and which alone has enabled a great living purveyor of "twopenny trash" to retain a certain portion of popularity, in spite of his utter abandonment of all consistency and public principle. If the writers to whom we are alluding will not condescend to this unstudied and familiar mode of communing with the public, let them at least have the art to conceal their art, and not obtrude the conviction that they are more anxious to display ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... Here is perfect consistency: the clearness of the "morning roses," arising from their being "wash'd with dew;" at all events, the quality being heightened by the circumstance. In a passage of the so-called "older" play, the duke is addressed by Kate as ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 22., Saturday, March 30, 1850 • Various

... Broadways, and see, as we do, the soft hands of your church-members sending off to the South, not only clothing for the slave, but manacles and whips, manufactured expressly for him,—what must we think of your consistency of character? [True, true.] And what must we think of your self-righteousness, when we know your church-members order the sale of slaves,—yes, slaves such as St. Clair's,—and under circumstances involving ...
— Slavery Ordained of God • Rev. Fred. A. Ross, D.D.

... pressed the injuries I had received from the French, on my visitor, so much the more warmly, on account of the reluctance he manifested to publish it; but all to no purpose. Next morning the Republican Freeman contained just such an account of the affair as comported with the consistency of that independent and manly journal; not a word being said about the French privateer, while the account of the proceedings of the English frigate was embellished with sundry facts and epithets that must have been obtained from Colonel Warbler's general stock in ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... Inside and out they were the same; without deviation or turning, they went straight forward. It is well said that Bunyan has here snatched a grace beyond the reach of art, and has applied it to exalt and beautify consistency of Christian character.—Ed. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... total failure in the practical side of all the subjects in which he was so brilliant a theorist. Strangely enough, however, this was not the case. There were few better bats in the School than Pringle. Norris on his day was more stylish, and Marriott not infrequently made more runs, but for consistency Pringle ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse

... writhing in all the agonies of despair, produced by a consciousness of guilt, and a dread of merited punishment, implored the queen to intercede for his safety. He who was profuse of the lives of others, with a consistency which is characteristic of villany and despotism cannot endure the thought of forfeiting his own, but betrays a cowardice proportioned to his recent insolence. The king returning at the moment in a state of the utmost exasperation, imputed the worst motives to his suppliant ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... which were perforated for the discharge of musketry. They were formed of the hardest and most knotted pines that could be procured; the sharp points of which were seasoned by fire until they acquired nearly the durability and consistency of iron. Beyond these firmly imbedded pickets was a ditch, encircling the fort, of about twenty feet in width, and of proportionate depth, the only communication over which to and from the garrison was by means ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... 212: Mr. Morley has the doubtful merit of consistency. As recently as April 27th, 1906, he alluded to the South African War as "that delusive and guilty war," in an address to the Eighty Club. According to The Times report this expression was received ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold

... finished his life by violence, or whether mere distaste of life and the loathing he had for mankind brought Timon to his conclusion, was not clear, yet all men admired the fitness of his epitaph and the consistency of his end, dying, as he had lived, a hater of mankind. And some there were who fancied a conceit in the very choice which he had made of the sea-beach for his place of burial, where the vast sea might weep forever upon his grave, as in contempt ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... The consistency of character or rather the defect of that virtue which had perhaps caused the aberration under which Ringfield had very nearly committed a crime without being, as we say, a depraved or vicious member of society, helped after the melancholy ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison

... still in force—a repeal of the non-importation act, as Great Britain claimed was in justice and comity her due, he recommended a war measure. But Barlow evidently felt himself to be under some decent restraint of logic and consistency. He urged upon the French minister the necessity now of a positive and imperial declaration that the decrees, so far as regarded the United States, were absolutely revoked; for this recent assertion of Bassano, that they were still in ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay

... among vegetables. Then there is the cool cucumber, like so many people, good for nothing when it is ripe and the wildness has gone out of it. How inferior in quality it is to the melon, which grows upon a similar vine, is of a like watery consistency, but is not half so valuable! The cucumber is a sort of low comedian in a company where the melon is a minor gentleman. I might also contrast the celery with the potato. The associations are as opposite as the dining-room of the duchess and the cabin of the peasant. I admire ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... belief, but he went to the service of his church whenever it was held among us, and he revered the Book of Common Prayer while he disputed the authority of the Bible with all comers. He had become a citizen, but he despised democracy, and achieved a hardy consistency only by voting with the pro-slavery party upon all measures friendly to the institution which he considered the scandal and reproach of the American name. From a heart tender to all, he liked to say wanton, savage and cynical things, but he bore no malice if you gainsaid him. I know nothing ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... not till our hero reached Paris, on his return from the distant East, that the rumor I have just mentioned acquired an appreciable consistency. Here, indeed, it took the shape of authentic information. Among a number of delayed letters which had been awaiting him at his banker's he found a communication from Gordon Wright. During the previous year or two his correspondence with this ...
— Confidence • Henry James

... at least is certain, that the one active, inhabited region of the mystery of justice is to be found within ourselves. Other regions lack consistency; they are probably imaginary, and must inevitably be deserted and sterile. They may have furnished mankind with illusions that served some purpose, but not always without doing harm; and though we may scarcely be entitled ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck

... must be kept in a well-stoppered jar, or properly closed pot. When ready, the soap should be of the consistency of Devonshire cream. To use, add water till it becomes of the ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... form of expression, which may seem awkward, I mean to convey this idea: That consistency of character would seem to preclude any heartfelt reverence in the descendant of those whose piety was manifested more in the hatred of earthly, than in the ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... a sure hand, and received but that morning, had put the Judge to a sore dilemma; for, however indifferent to actual consistency, he was most anxious to save appearances. He could not but recollect how violent he had been on former occasions in favour of these prosecutions; and being sensible at the same time that the credit of the witnesses, though shaken in the opinion of the ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... Setebos," a wonderful poem designed to describe the way in which a primitive nature may at once be afraid of its gods and yet familiar with them. Caliban in describing his deity starts with a more or less natural and obvious parallel between the deity and himself, carries out the comparison with consistency and an almost revolting simplicity, and ends in a kind of blasphemous extravaganza of anthropomorphism, basing his conduct not merely on the greatness and wisdom, but also on the manifest weaknesses and ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton

... statesmen who meant merely to give Home Rule to Ireland have stumbled into the making of a new constitution for the United Kingdom. What wonder that their workmanship betrays its accidental origin. It has no coherence, no consistency; nothing is called by its right name, and words are throughout substituted for facts; the new Parliament of Ireland is denied its proper title; the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament is nominally saved, and ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey

... here at the consistency of those democratists who, when they are not on their guard, treat the humbler part of the community with the greatest contempt, whilst, at the same time, they pretend to make them the depositories of all power. It would require a ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... rather dilapidated building. The glass in the east window was in squares of the tint and consistency of "bottle glass," except where one fragment of what is technically known as "ruby" bore witness that there had once been a stained window there. There were dirty calico blinds to do duty for stained glass in moderating the light; dirt, long gathered, had blunted the sharpness of the tracery ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... humming-birds, the dull engravings of historical pictures, the old books—the drawing-room table was covered with annuals and keepsakes, Moore's poems, Mrs. Barbauld's works—all had a pathetic ugliness, redeemed by a certain consistency of quality. And then the poky, comfortable arrangements, the bath-chair in the coach-house, the four-post bedsteads, the hand-rail on the stairs, the sandbags for the doors, all spoke of a timid, invalid life, a dim backwater in the tide of things. There had been children ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson

... boast of his consistency, averring that he had never changed his opinion upon a public question but once. We think he was much too consistent. A notable example of an excessive consistency was his adhering to the project of a United States Bank, when there was scarcely a ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... I won't," he said decisively, realizing that the discussion was in danger of becoming a vituperative, schoolboy argument. "You have insisted on being considered as a man. Consistency would demand that you talk like a man, and like a man listen to man-talk. And listen you shall. It is not your fault that this unpleasantness has arisen. I do not blame you for anything; remember that. And for the same reason you should ...
— Adventure • Jack London

... prison officials, although this fact is only another proof of their uncommon obstinacy; for it is clear that, according to their principles, they ought to fill our gaols, yet they perversely refrain from those crimes which every principle of consistency ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote

... a reading of them, for the purpose of enquiring farther into the particulars of the Welsh gentleman's history—which undoubtedly was a wee mysterious; consisting of matters lying heads and thraws; and of odds and ends, that no human skill could dovetail into a Christian consistency. ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir

... impervious to the digestive juices, and while they are eventually digested, it takes a very much longer time to do so than would be the case with stale bread, which is so readily masticated into a creamy consistency. If one is subjected to conditions where he must either eat hot biscuits or perhaps embarrass a most hospitable hostess, there is only one thing for him to do, ...
— The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction - Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male • Winfield S. Hall

... you. I fancy he would risk another broken head, rather than give up his title to it as an officer of the Crown. We go on here wrangling as usual, but I am afraid all to no purpose. Those who are in possession of power are determined to use it without the least pretence to justice or consistency. They have ordered a Scrutiny for Westminster, in defiance of all law or precedent, and without any other hope or expectation but that of harassing and tormenting Mr. Fox and his friends, and obliging them to waste their time and ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... parts of the house. "All good counsel has its sting," he continued, "but the good counsel of him who has just spoken is a sting in a wound deeper than the skin. The noble Earl has bidden us to be consistent and reasonable. I have risen here to speak for that to which mere consistency and reason may do cruel violence. I am a man of peace, I am the enemy of war—it is my faith and creed; yet I repudiate the principle put forward by the Earl of Eglington, that you shall not clinch your hand for the cause which is your heart's cause, because, if you smite, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... it of him," was the remark on every lip. Of his ability there never had been a moment's doubt, but it had ever been an uncomfortable ability, it had tortured foes and made friends anxious. No one had ever seen him show feeling. If it was a mask, he had worn it with a curious consistency: it had been with him as a child, at school, at college, and he had brought it back again to the town where he was born. It had effectually prevented his being popular, but it had made him—with his foppishness and his originality—an object of perpetual interest. Few men had ventured to cross ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... mixed with licorice-root powder, ground flaxseed, molasses, or sirup to the consistency of honey, or a "soft solid." They are intended, chiefly, to act locally upon the mouth and throat. They are given by being spread upon the tongue, gums, or teeth with a wooden paddle or ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... and simple preparation of subsistence that I know of, and which is used extensively by the Mexicans and Indians, is called "cold flour." It is made by parching corn, and pounding it in a mortar to the consistency of coarse meal; a little sugar and cinnamon added makes it quite palatable. When the traveler becomes hungry or thirsty, a little of the flour is mixed with water and drunk. It is an excellent article for a traveler who ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy

... show where it may be divided into five portions; these are of a satin whiteness, and each one is filled with an oval mass of cream-coloured pulp, in which are two or three seeds about the size of chestnuts. This pulp is the eatable part. Its consistency is that of a rich custard. As to describing its taste, that is more than I can do. It is not acid, nor is it sweet, nor juicy, but yet, as we ate it, we agreed that none of these qualities were wanting, and that it was the most delicious ...
— The Mate of the Lily - Notes from Harry Musgrave's Log Book • W. H. G. Kingston

... were struck for the occasion. A low-rigged vessel, such as a felucca, would indeed find complete shelter in either of the two westernmost creeks— the easternmost had only three feet of water in it when we visited it; but the shores on either side consisted only of a brownish-grey fetid mud, of a consistency little thicker than pea-soup; and the facilities for embarking slaves were so utterly wanting that we felt sure we need not trouble ourselves at any future time ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... you and me, the Chief knows his public. And the public knows its papers. The last thing it wants from us is consistency, which is always boring. Besides (still more confidentially), the public doesn't take us quite so seriously as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various

... delight us throughout; and when to these qualities are added the marvelous vigor of expression and force of passion with which he shakes his audience from the middle of the play on, one feels as if there were nothing more to ask of acting. No description, in fact, can do justice to the perfect consistency and harmony of his conception, or to the marvelous delicacy of his points, which are yet as penetrating as they are subtle, and which never fail of their effect, whether rendered by a gesture whose ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various

... fancy of THE SKULL—of letting fall a bullet through the skull's eye—was suggested to Kidd by the piratical flag. No doubt he felt a kind of poetical consistency in recovering his money through ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... during his absence by a number of young men who are courting the supposed widow—a widow who, if she be fair and fat, can hardly also be less than forty. Can any subject seem more hopeless? Moreover, this subject so initially faulty is treated with a carelessness in respect of consistency, ignorance of commonly known details, and disregard of ordinary canons, that can hardly be surpassed, and yet I cannot think that in the whole range of literature there is a work which can be decisively placed above it. I am afraid you will hardly accept this; ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler

... the vibrations to which the man has now become susceptible. He finds himself capable of performing with the utmost ease the proverbial feat of "seeing through a brick wall," for to his newly-acquired vision the brick wall seems to have a consistency no greater than that of a light mist. He therefore sees what is going on in an adjoining room almost as though no intervening wall existed; he can describe with accuracy the contents of a locked box, or read a sealed letter; with a little practice he ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater

... Collot, and other members of the old Committee, view these innovations with sullen acquiescence; but Barrere, whose frivolous and facile spirit is incapable of consistency, even in wickedness, perseveres and flourishes at the tribune as gaily as ever.—Unabashed by detection, insensible to contempt, he details his epigrams and antitheses against Catilines and Cromwells with as much self-sufficiency as when, in the same tinsel eloquence, ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... as we shall see, are not yet properly understood, have enormously swollen and massive heads; in one (Fig. 2), the head is highly polished; in the other (Fig. 3), it is opaque and hairy. The worker-minors vary greatly in size, some being double the bulk of others. The entire body is of very solid consistency, and of a pale reddish-brown colour. The thorax or middle segment is armed with three pairs of sharp spines; the head, also, has a pair of similar spines proceeding ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... the first discoveries effected by the police on the day following upon that strange murder, vague, inconsistent discoveries to which the subsequent inquiry imparted neither consistency nor certainty. The movements of Antoinette Brehat remained as absolutely inexplicable as those of the blonde lady, nor was any light thrown upon the identity of that mysterious creature with the golden hair who had killed Baron d'Hautrec ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc

... To this plan the Unionists offered the alternative of Tariff Reform, urging that the needed revenues should be derived from duties laid principally upon imported foodstuffs, although the free trade members of the party could not with consistency lend this proposal their support. The rejection of the Finance Bill by the Lords, November 30, 1909, sweeping aside as it did three centuries of unbroken precedent, brought to a crisis the question of ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... The power against him was the power of the universe in which he was nothing but a little, lost, whirling atom. It was all of no avail, and the moon did not even smile at his feeble efforts. He was too light to revolve round her, too impalpable to create his own orbit; he had not even the consistency of a comet; he had reached the point of stagnation, as it were—the dead level—the neutral zone where the attractions of the earth and moon meet and counterbalance one another—where bodies have no ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood

... are victimized by an adventurer, proves that you will be an easy prey for flatterers and designing villains. You will be unfortunate in manipulating your affairs to a smooth consistency. ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... the former theory appears to be triumphant over the latter; for, without waiting to dispute the wisdom of making dwarfed and useless structures merely for the whimsical motive assigned, surely if such a method were adopted in so many cases, we should expect that in consistency it would be adopted in all cases. This reasonable expectation, however, is far from being realized. We have already seen that in numberless cases, such as that of the fore-limbs of serpents, no vestige of a rudiment ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes

... here he had seen the wreck of an English ship, whose crew, escaping to land, had been killed by the Indians; and that this sea was distant from Montreal only seventeen days by canoe. The clearness, consistency, and apparent simplicity of his story deceived Champlain, who had heard of a voyage of the English to the northern seas, coupled with rumors of wreck and disaster, and was thus confirmed in his belief of Vignau's honesty. The Marechal de Brissac, the President Jeannin, and other ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... everything having become mouldy with the constant wetting. The day was marked too, by a grant feast of "stodge," doughboys, and jam, stodge being a delicacy extemporised for the occasion, consisting of "flour boiled with water to the consistency of paste, with some small pieces of raw meat thrown into it"!! The Brothers spent part of the afternoon in the mutual good offices of picking the pandanus thorns out of each others feet and legs, the ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine

... very consistent. The same consistency cannot be claimed for his support of a Reform Bill far more Radical than that which his party had so recently rejected. In my own judgment it is impossible to defend with success the conduct of the Derby Ministry on ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... creek, in the first instance, but re-appeared in about a quarter of an hour, when the second luff hailed to say that it was a mere cul de sac, only some half-a-mile long, and with very little water in it, the banks being of soft, black, foetid mud, of a consistency which rendered landing an impossibility. Having communicated this intelligence, the cutter next proceeded up stream and quickly vanished round a bend. She had been out of sight fully half-an-hour, and the captain was just beginning to manifest some anxiety, neither sight nor sound ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... means convinces me that it is so unsound as to render him irresponsible for his actions. It were to put a charitable construction upon his conduct to say that no one but a madman could be capable of it; but there was too much consistency in what he has said and done to admit of such an inference. But for the interposition of another person he owned that he would have killed the King; and the disappointment he exhibited, and the language ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... made the point that Mr. Probert was neither a count nor a lord her sister rejoined that she didn't care whether he was or not. To this Francie replied that she herself didn't care, but that Delia ought to for consistency. ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James

... present poems, the uniformity and consistency of the grammatical forms is so entire, that there is indeed no internal evidence of subsequent transcription into any other dialect than that in which they were originally written. However, the dialect and grammatical ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various

... pest-houses) we add ragged schools. We allow them to become contaminated, and when that is accomplished, we go to work to undo what has been done. If this does not succeed we punish by law the poor neglected beings for taking the poisons we really offered them! Oh, rare consistency in this boasted age of light, and science, and learning! Let us, therefore, first seek an education worthy of the name, and then find the best means of carrying it out. What exists at present is fundamentally defective, especially by beginning too ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... to its former level, leaving the singular appearance of a wall or rampart of ice three or four feet high, and about two feet in thickness, along the greatest part of the upper edge of the weir. The ice composing this barrier where it adheres to the stone, is of solid consistency, but the upper part consists of a multitude of thin laminae or layers resting upon each other in a confused manner, and at different degrees of inclination, their interstices being occupied by innumerable icy spiculae, diverging and crossing each other in all directions. ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett

... of 1870-71, as because of the essentially experimental character of his painting. Undoubtedly he would have done great things. And undoubtedly they would have been different from those that he did; probably in the direction—already indicated in his most dignified performance—of giving more consistency, more vivid definiteness, more reality, even, ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell

... well as the whole world, he must have satisfied himself, for Mr. Lodge never permits his emotions to control his intelligence, that his action was wise and patriotic. But although Mr. Lodge will not surrender his convictions he has no scruples about consistency. ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous

... on a tradition, current in those times, that no young lady was fit to be married till she could construct a boiled Indian pudding of such consistency that it could be thrown up a chimney and come down on the ground outside without breaking; and the consequence of Cerinthy Ann's ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster

... embraced the lesson of humility, the once despised Emma Brandon had been rising in her estimation. The lowliness of her manners, and the heart-whole consistency of her self-devotion, had far outweighed her little follies, and, together with remorse for having depreciated and neglected her, had established her ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... tastes and habits, with few wants, he has acquired a comfortable competence, without acquiring a thirst for gold, and without withholding his substance from charitable and public purposes. He is highly esteemed by all who know him, for a life-long consistency of character, and sterling qualities as a man and a friend. The writer occasionally sees him on our crowded streets, although quite feeble, with a mind perfectly serene, and well aware that his race is almost run. His ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... at one time, that horses could not be expected to do work at all, unless there was hard meat in them! 'This is a very silly and erroneous idea, if we inquire into it,' as Professor Dick truly observes, 'for whatever may be the consistency of the food when taken into the stomach, it must, before the body can possibly derive any substantial support or benefit from it, be converted into chyme—a pultacious mass; and this, as it passes onward from the stomach ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various

... habit of wishing ardently in right directions is well on the way toward becoming educated. For earnest wishing precedes and conditions every achievement that is worthy the name. The man who does not wish does not achieve, and the man who does wish with persistency and consistency does not fail of achievement. Had Columbus not wished with consuming ardor to circumnavigate the globe, he would never have encountered America. The Atlantic cable figured in the dreams and wishes of Cyrus W. Field long before even the preliminaries became realities. The wish evermore ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson

... UNION of the sexes in holy Matrimony is a law of nature, finding sanction in both morals and legislation. Even some of the lower animals unite in this union for life and instinctively observe the law of conjugal fidelity with a consistency which might put to blush other animals more highly endowed. It seems important to discuss this subject and understand our social evils, as well as the intense passional desires of the sexes, which must be controlled, ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... curious thing human nature is!" she commented, when he had made an end. "My better judgment says you were all kinds of a somebody for not clinching the nail when you had it so well driven home. And yet I can't help admiring your exalted fanaticism. I do love consistency, and the courage of it. But tell me, if you can, how far these fair-fighting scruples of yours go. You have made it perfectly plain that if a thief should steal your pocketbook, you would suffer loss before you'd ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde

... Fillgrave and Century were there to meet him. When they all assembled in Lady Arabella's room, the poor woman's heart almost sank within her,—as well it might, at such a sight. If she could only reconcile it with her honour, her consistency, with her high de Courcy principles, to send once more for Dr Thorne. Oh, Frank! Frank! to what misery your ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... marriage, he dislikes still more the fiercer bonds and wilder vows that are made by lawless love. If he laughs at the authority of priests, he laughs louder at the pomposity of men of science. If he condemns the irresponsibility of faith, he condemns with a sane consistency the equal irresponsibility of art. He has pleased all the bohemians by saying that women are equal to men; but he has infuriated them by suggesting that men are equal to women. He is almost mechanically just; he has something of the terrible quality of a machine. The man who is really ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... garment from the bleeding flesh, The old man kneeling. Once, and only once, The monarch gazed on that disastrous sight, Muttering, 'and yet he lives!' A time it was Of swift transitions. Hearts, how proud soe'er, Made not that boast—consistency in sin, Though dark and rough accessible to Grace As earth to vernal showers. With hands hard-clenched The King upstarted: thus his voice rang out: 'Beware, who gave ill counsel to their King! The royal countenance is against them set, ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere

... old woman. She had a pouch under her chin like a pelican, while her complexion, from the quantity of oil and foul feeding in which she delighted, was a greasy mahogany. She despised the unnatural luxuries of knives and forks, constantly devouring her meat with her fingers, whatever its consistency might be; if flesh, she tore it with both hands; if soup, she—bah! and, as the devil would have it, the venerable beauty chose to take a fancy to me. Oh, she was a balloon! I have often expected to see her ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... and shake it often that they may not burn to the stewpan; then add the broth made as above, boiling hot, in quantity to your own judgment, and as you like it for thickness. It should be of about the consistency of pea-soup. Pass it through a tamis. Season to ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury

... is a dreffle smart man; He's ben on all sides that give places or pelf, But consistency still wuz a part of his plan,— He's been true to one party,—and thet is himself; So John P. Robinson he Sez he shall vote ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter

... like consistency," said Mr. Stackpole. "America shouldn't dress up poles with liberty caps, till all who walk under are free to wear them. She cannot boast that the breath of her air and the breath of freedom ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell

... newspapers simply endeavour to sustain a large circulation and so merit advertisements by being as miscellaneously and vividly interesting as possible, by firing where the crowd seems thickest, by seeking perpetually and without any attempt at consistency, the greatest excitement of the greatest number. It is upon the cultivation and rapid succession of inflammatory topics that the modern newspaper expends its capital and trusts to recover its reward. Its general news sinks steadily to a subordinate position; criticism, ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells

... to the extent of independent impulses, each of which is likely to make itself felt where the other would be more practically useful. We may even say that in the countless cases in which struggle is ended otherwise than in the pitiless consistency of the exercise of force, this quite elementary and unreasoned tendency to conciliation is a factor in the result—a factor quite distinct from weakness, or good fellowship; from social morality or fellow-feeling. This tendency to conciliation is, in fact, a quite ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... been energetic and efficient in demanding their own liberties; the Friends and the Baptists agreed in demanding liberty of conscience and worship, and equality before the law, for all alike. But the active labor in this cause was mainly done by the Baptists. It is to their consistency and constancy in the warfare against the privileges of the powerful "Standing Order" of New England, and of the moribund establishments of the South, that we are chiefly indebted for the final triumph, in this country, of that principle of the separation of church from state ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... of his relations with Madame Visconti, we may, however, suppose that his prejudice against the perfide Albion was not very deep-rooted. Indeed in his sentiments, as in his conduct, consistency was conspicuous by its absence. We find this would-be Legitimist, absolutist, ultra-orthodox worshipper of every old-time privilege and doctrine, yet continually saying and doing things that savour more of the democratic ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton

... sat down beside Migwan and played in the clay. After she had rolled it around in her hand awhile it became a beautiful consistency for modeling, so she began making statuettes of the different girls. She had a great deal of aptness in modeling and managed to make her figures resemble somewhat the girls they were supposed to represent. She became ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey

... read a good deal, and Carnaby credited him with profound historical knowledge; but he neither wrote nor threatened to do so. Something of cynicism appeared in his talk of public matters; politics amused him, and his social views lacked consistency, tending, however, to an indolent conservatism. Despite his convivial qualities, he had traits of the reserved, even of the unsociable, man: a slight awkwardness in bearing, a mute shyness with strangers, a hesitancy in ordinary talk, and ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... generally more healthy than the whites who own them, and who reside on the plantations in the summer. The civilized man may turn to savage life perhaps with safety, as regards health; but then he must plunge with the Indian into the depths of the forest, and observe consistency in all his habits. These pages are not written, however, for such as are disposed to consider themselves beyond the pale of civilized society; but for the reflecting part of the community, who can estimate the advantages ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck



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