Obstinacy Quotes

• The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Inspirational, Success, Perseverance

  "Proverbial Wisdom: Proverbs, Maxims and Ethical Sentences, of Interest to All Classes of Men". Book by Abram N. Coleman, p. 233, 1903.

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• They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance.

  Edmund Burke

  Failure, Errors, Political

  Edmund Burke, James BURKE (Barrister-at-Law.) (1854). “The Speeches of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, with Memoir and Historical Introductions. By James Burke”, p.178

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• Obstinacy and vehemency in opinion are the surest proofs of stupidity.

  Bernard Barton

  Stupidity, Opinion, Proof

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• Obstinacy is will asserting itself without being able to justify itself. It is persistence without a reasonable motive. It is the tenacity of self-love substituted for that of reason and conscience.

  Henri Frederic Amiel

  Love, Persistence, Self

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• Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Stress, Men, Weak Man

  Of Human Bondage ch. 39 (1915)

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

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Believe, Mind, Causes

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• Obstinacy is ever most positive when it is most in the wrong.

  Suzanne Curchod

  Opinion, Stubbornness, Obstinate

  "Many Thoughts of Many Minds: A Treasury of Quotations From the Literature of Every Land and Every Age" edited by Louis Klopsch, (p. 195), 1896.

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• A narrow mind begets obstinacy; we do not easily believe what we cannot see.

  John Dryden

  Believe, Mind, Begets

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• 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

  Law, Order, Generosity

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• Youth enters the world with very happy prejudices in her own favor. She imagines herself not only certain of accomplishing every adventure, but of obtaining those rewards which the accomplishment may deserve. She is not easily persuaded to believe that the force of merit can be resisted by obstinacy and avarice, or its luster darkened by envy and malignity.

  Samuel Johnson

  Believe, Adventure, Accomplishment

  Samuel Johnson (1828). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.199

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• Brutes find out where their talents lie; A bear will not attempt to fly, A foundered horse will oft debate Before he tries a five barred gate. A dog by instinct turns aside Who sees the ditch too deep and wide, But man we find the only creature Who, led by folly, combats nature; Who, when she loudly cries-Forbear! With obstinacy fixes there; And where the genius least inclines, Absurdly bends his whole designs.

  Jonathan Swift

  Dog, Horse, Lying

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• I wish, my dear Kepler, that we could have a good laugh together at the extraordinary stupidity of the mob. What do you think of the foremost philosophers of this University? In spite of my oft-repeated efforts and invitations, they have refused, with the obstinacy of a glutted adder, to look at the planets or the Moon or my glass [telescope].

  Galileo Galilei

  Science, Thinking, Moon

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• 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

  Believe, Self, Discipline

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• May God in his mercy enable us without obstinacy to perceive our errors.

  Michael Servetus

  Errors, May, Mercy

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• 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

  Causes, Heroism, Lasts

  William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1482, Delphi Classics

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• Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the intellect.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Philosophical, Pessimism, Stubbornness

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2013). “Religion From the Essays of Arhur Schopenhauer”, p.54, Simon and Schuster

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• Who is so deaf or so blind as is he that willfully will neither hear nor see?

  John Heywood

  Knowledge, Blind, Deaf

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• 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

  Strong, Men, Thinking

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.95

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• Men of integrity are generally pretty obstinate, in adhering to an opinion once adopted.

  William Cobbett

  Integrity, Men, Opinion

  William Cobbett (1836). “Beauties of Cobbett”, p.70

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• The history of science, like the history of all human ideas, is a history of irresponsible dreams, of obstinacy, and of error. But science is one of the very few human activities-perhaps the only one-in which errors are systematically criticized and fairly often, in time, corrected. This is why we can say that, in science, we often learn from our mistakes, and why we can speak clearly and sensibly about making progress there. In most other fields of human endeavour there is change, but rarely progress ... And in most fields we do not even know how to evaluate change.

  Karl Popper

  Dream, Mistake, Learning

  1960 Conjectures and Refutations (published1963), ch.10.

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• The obstinacy of the indolent and weak is less conquerable than that of the fiery and bold.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Weak, Fiery

  "Aphorisms on man. Translated from the original manuscript of the Rev. John Caspar Lavater, citizen of Zuric. ; [One line from Juvenal]" by Johann Kaspar Lavater, 1790.

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• One of the satisfactions of a genius is his will-power and obstinacy.

  Man Ray

  Art, Mastery, Genius

  Letter to his sister, as quoted in "Man Ray: American Artist" (1988) by Neil Baldwin, May 18, 1941.

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

  Michel de Montaigne

  Vigor, Stubbornness, Stability

  "Montaigne's Essays: Top Essays".

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

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Clever, Literature, Reason

  Harriet Beecher Stowe (1866). “Little Foxes, Or, The Little Failings which Mar Domestic Happiness”, p.70

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• 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 de Montaigne

  Stubborn, Serious, Heat

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