Daily Inspiration Quote by William Allen White

White turns the virtue of “consistency” into costume jewelry: shiny from a distance, tawdry up close, prized mostly by people who can’t afford the real thing. The line works because it yanks a beloved civic compliment out of the moral display case and holds it under harsher light. “Paste” isn’t just fake; it’s fake with aspiration. It imitates value while quietly confessing insecurity. When White says “only cheap men cherish” it’s not a class insult so much as a character diagnosis: the kind of person who clings to being “consistent” often does so because it’s easier than being right, brave, or responsive to evidence.

As an editor in the Progressive Era, White lived in a political culture that loved to weaponize yesterday’s statements. The demand for consistency was (and is) a cheap prosecutorial trick: a way to dodge the messy work of judging whether someone adapted to new facts, new crises, new moral claims. White’s subtext is that rigidity can masquerade as principle, especially in public life. The “cheap men” are the ones who need rules as shields: if they never change their mind, they never have to admit uncertainty, growth, or complicity.

There’s also an editor’s wink here. Newspapers thrive on keeping a record, and editors are paid to call out contradictions. White is reminding his own profession: consistency is not the highest journalistic trophy. It’s a minor tool, useful for spotting hypocrisy, but worthless as a substitute for conscience. Real integrity sometimes looks like inconsistency to people invested in easy accounting.