"Don't be "consistent" but be simple true"
About this Quote
Holmes urges a shift in allegiance from the appearance of steadiness to the substance of honesty. Consistency, bracketed in his phrasing, becomes a performance: the habit of repeating oneself so as not to disturb an image we have already presented to the world. Being simply true is different. It asks for sincerity moment by moment, even when new evidence, deeper reflection, or moral growth requires an alteration of course. The call is not to flit about aimlessly, but to let fidelity to reality outrank loyalty to yesterday’s declarations.
The words carry a distinctly 19th-century New England accent. Holmes was a physician, essayist, and wit at the breakfast table, suspicious of fashionable quackeries and tidy dogmas. He argued against homeopathy, defended vaccination, and revered the self-correcting nature of science. For a doctor and man of letters living amid theological debate and rapid technological change, rigid consistency could be a vice that protects errors. The better virtue, he suggests, is intellectual conscience: follow the facts, confess mistakes, revise when necessary. That posture is ethically braver than clinging to a position because one has already spoken it in public.
The aphorism also winks at social psychology. People often maintain views to avoid embarrassment or to satisfy party lines. The scare quotes around consistent puncture that habit, implying a brittle, cosmetic steadiness. Simple truth, by contrast, is unadorned. It does not require elaborate rationalizations; it is humble enough to say "I was wrong" and sturdy enough to withstand the charge of inconsistency. In personal life, this looks like adjusting a judgment when a friend reveals a fuller story. In public life, it looks like leaders who update policies when data changes, and who explain why.
There is a paradox here: the only consistency worth having is consistency with truth. Holmes places the compass inside the claim itself, not in the ego that made it yesterday.
The words carry a distinctly 19th-century New England accent. Holmes was a physician, essayist, and wit at the breakfast table, suspicious of fashionable quackeries and tidy dogmas. He argued against homeopathy, defended vaccination, and revered the self-correcting nature of science. For a doctor and man of letters living amid theological debate and rapid technological change, rigid consistency could be a vice that protects errors. The better virtue, he suggests, is intellectual conscience: follow the facts, confess mistakes, revise when necessary. That posture is ethically braver than clinging to a position because one has already spoken it in public.
The aphorism also winks at social psychology. People often maintain views to avoid embarrassment or to satisfy party lines. The scare quotes around consistent puncture that habit, implying a brittle, cosmetic steadiness. Simple truth, by contrast, is unadorned. It does not require elaborate rationalizations; it is humble enough to say "I was wrong" and sturdy enough to withstand the charge of inconsistency. In personal life, this looks like adjusting a judgment when a friend reveals a fuller story. In public life, it looks like leaders who update policies when data changes, and who explain why.
There is a paradox here: the only consistency worth having is consistency with truth. Holmes places the compass inside the claim itself, not in the ego that made it yesterday.
Quote Details
| Topic | Truth |
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