The rarest of human qualities is consistency. — W. Somerset Maugham

The rarest of human qualities is consistency.

Author: W. Somerset Maugham

Insight: We like to think of ourselves as having fixed principles, but most of us are more like weather patterns—changing with the season, the mood, the stakes involved. We promise ourselves we'll start that project Monday, swear we'll never gossip again after one incident, declare we're done with someone and then text them a week later. The inconsistency isn't weakness exactly. It's more that we contain multitudes, and most of us lack the relentless self-awareness required to bridge the gap between who we mean to be and who we actually are day to day. What makes consistency rare is that it demands something harder than occasional discipline: it requires honest self-knowledge and the willingness to be boring. You have to know what you actually value—not what sounds good or what you think you should value—and then stick with it when it costs something. When your friends are going out and you said you'd write. When you could take the easier path and you committed to the harder one. The people who seem to have it figured out aren't mysteriously more motivated. They've just decided that the discomfort of changing their mind repeatedly is worse than the discomfort of staying the course.

Source: Of Human Bondage, p. 123, 1915