Inconstancy

Inconstancy is the lack of constancy, a lack of consistency in thought, emotion or action.

Sourced

• O Fortuna,
  velut luna
  statu variabilis.
  • O how Fortune, inopportune,
    Apes the moon's inconstancy.
  • Carmina Burana, No. 17, "O Fortuna", line 1; translation by David Parlett. [1].

• I hate inconstancy—I loathe, detest,
  Abhor, condemn, abjure the mortal made
  Of such quicksilver clay that in his breast
  No permanent foundation can be laid.
  • Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto II, Stanza 209.

• All things are inconstant except the faith in the soul, which changes all things and fills their inconstancy with light, but though I seem to be driven out of my country as a misbeliever I have found no man yet with a faith like mine.
  • James Joyce, letter to Augusta Gregory (1902-11-22), from James Joyce by Richard Ellmann (1959) [Oxford University Press, 1983 edition, ISBN 0-195-03381-7] (p. 107) .

• Notre raison est toujours déçue par l'inconstance des apparences.
  • Our reason is always disappointed by the inconsistency of appearances.
  • Blaise Pascal, Pensées (1669), Section II The Misery of Man without God (60-183).

• They are not constant but are changing still.
  • William Shakespeare, Cymbeline (1611), Act II, scene 5, line 30.

• O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
  That monthly changes in her circled orb,
  Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
  • William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (1597), Act II, scene 2, line 109.

• Love is not love
  Which alters when it alteration finds,
  Or bends with the remover to remove;
  O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark
  That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
  It is the star to every wandering bark,
  Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
  • William Shakespeare, Sonnet CXVI (1609).

• Or as one nail by strength drives out another,
  So the remembrance of my former love
  Is by a newer object quite forgotten.
  • William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1590s), Act II, scene 4, line 193.

• I loved a lass, a fair one,
  As fair as e'er was seen;
  She was indeed a rare one,
  Another Sheba queen:
  But, fool as then I was,
  I thought she loved me too:
  But now, alas! she's left me,
  Falero, lero, loo!
  • George Wither, I Loved a Lass; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 390.