A Quote by Thomas Browne

Obstinacy in a bad cause is but constancy in a good.

Thomas Browne

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Bad Cause Constancy Good Obstinacy

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Thomas Browne
British - Scientist
October 19, 1605 - October 19, 1682

'Tis known by the name of perseverance in a good cause, and of obstinacy in a bad one.

Laurence Sterne

'Tis known by the name of perseverance in a good cause,-and of obstinacy in a bad one.

Laurence Sterne

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

And obstinacy is the sister of constancy, at least in vigour and stability.

Michel de Montaigne

A good cause can become bad if we fight for it with means that are indiscriminately murderous. A bad cause can become good if enough people fight for it in a spirit of comradeship and self-sacrifice. In the end it is how you fight, as much as why you fight, that makes your cause good or bad.

Freeman Dyson

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

There are no good wars or bad wars. The only thing bad about a war is to lose it. All wars have been fought for a so-called good Cause on both sides. But only the victor's Cause becomes history's Noble Cause. It's not a matter of who is right or who is wrong, it's a matter of who has the best generals and the better army!

Charles Bukowski

Constancy in love is a good thing; but it means nothing, and is nothing, without constancy in every kind of effort.

Charles Dickens

The obstinacy of cleverness and reason is nothing to the obstinacy of folly and inanity.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

When it comes to partisan politics, everyone is a hypocrite. And all they care about is whether it hurts or helps them ... Is it good or bad for the Democrats? Is it good or bad for the Republicans? Is it good or bad for Jews, or good or bad for blacks, or is it good or bad for women? Is it good or bad for men? Is it good or bad for gays? That's the way people think about issues today. There is very little discussion of enduring principles.

Alan Dershowitz

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

There is no courage but in innocence; no constancy but in an honest cause.

Thomas Southerne

Narrowness of mind is often the cause of obstinacy; we do not easily believe beyond what we see.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Because one cause is bad does not make the opposing cause good.

Fay Weldon

We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.

William James

The greatest cause of evil included all human motives in one giant paradox. Good and bad were so inextricably mixed that we couldn't make them out; bad seemed to lead to good, and good motives led to bad. The paradox is that evil comes from man's urge to heroic victory over evil.

Ernest Becker

A Quote by Thomas Browne

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