“Psychotics are consistently inconsistent. The essence of sanity is to be inconsistently inconsistent.”

—  Larry Wall

[199809041918.MAA06850@wall.org, 1998]
Usenet postings, 1998

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Psychotics are consistently inconsistent. The essence of sanity is to be inconsistently inconsistent." by Larry Wall?
Larry Wall photo
Larry Wall 294
American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl 1954

Related quotes

John Cage photo

“As far as consistency of thought goes, I prefer inconsistency.”

John Cage (1912–1992) American avant-garde composer

Quote from an interview by John Corbett (1989)
1980s
Source: Silence

Tom Robbins photo

“Of course I'm inconsistent! Only logicians and cretins are consistent!”

Tom Robbins Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

spoken by the character "The Chink".
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1976)

Larry Wall photo

“The problem with being consistent is that there are lots of ways to be consistent, and they're all inconsistent with each other.”

Larry Wall (1954) American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl

Message-ID <20050516005559.GC26184@wall.org> http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl6.language/21259, to perl6-language mailing-list.
Other

Zig Ziglar photo

“You cannot consistently perform in a manner which is inconsistent with the way you see yourself.”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker
Kevin Kelly photo

“Inconsistency is an inevitable trait of any self-sustaining system built up out of consistent parts.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)

John S. Bell photo

“Bohr was inconsistent, unclear, willfully obscure and right. Einstein was consistent, clear, down-to-earth and wrong.”

John S. Bell (1928–1990) Northern Irish physicist

quoted in Graham Farmelo, " Random Acts of Science http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/books/review/Farmelo-t.html", The New York Times (June 11, 2010)

“A person is known by the behavior he displays consistently. An experiment by Himmelfarb (1972) makes the important point that consistency in other persons' characterizations of an actor carries more weight if they are based on observations in dissimilar rather than similar situations. The other side of the coin is that a person's inconsistent behavior is attributed not to him but to circumstances.”

Harold Kelley (1921–2003) American psychologist & academic

Source: "Attribution theory and research." 1980, p. 465

Abbie Hoffman photo

“For six years, the only consistent thing about our national drug policy has been its inconsistency. Harsher penalties, urine testing, hysteria, budget cuts and the simplistic "Just Say No!' campaign (the equivalent of telling manic depressives to "just cheer up") have returned drug education and treatment to the Reefer Madness era.”

Abbie Hoffman (1936–1989) American political and social activist

"Reefer Madness" in The Nation (21 November 1987) http://www.marijuanalibrary.org/Nation_Hoffman_112187.html.

George Boole photo

“I have endeavoured, in the following treatise, to convey as complete an account of the present state of knowledge on the subject of Differential Equations, as was consistent with the idea of a work intended, primarily, for elementary instruction. It was my object, first of all, to meet the wants of those who had no previous acquaintance with the subject, but I also desired not quite to disappoint others who might seek for more v advanced information. These distinct, but not inconsistent - aims determined the plan of composition.”

George Boole (1815–1864) English mathematician, philosopher and logician

Source: 1850s, A treatise on differential equations (1859), p. v; Lead paragraph of the preface

Theo van Doesburg photo

“He who is above cannot be below / Not to show one’s colours is to be like flotsam / not to be consistent (to be oneself) is not being / inconsistent / but never being true / here all flag-heroism but incite to / being oneself / suffering the consequences of being:/ to be hard to be cold to be cruel / To kill to hurt / to disturb tranquility / to distort harmony / from truly being / that is heroic thing / to be oneself is / being neither under bond nor borrowed nor sold nor hired / to be / means / to be spiritually free”

Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931) Dutch architect, painter, draughtsman and writer

Source: 1926 – 1931, lines from his poem 'The other face. To be', I.K, Bonset (= pseudo as writer for Theo van Doesburg); 'De Stijl' Vol. XIII, 75-6, 1926, p. 64

Related topics