Admission: I don’t understand the “hobgoblin” quote. Just never made sense to me.
Makes me so dizzy I look away
It deals with those people, I refer to them as "process Nazis", who have a procedure or methodology, and cannot deviate from it, even when it is nonsensical.
It is a foolish consistency, and it is often insisted upon by little minds.
Examples abound, most often in interactions with governing officials.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was trying to say “A great person does not have to think consistently from one day to the next.”
It’s an irony, in my opinion
People are right to insist on one being consistent - their deeds following their words, etc.
Those assailing consistency assail it to make average people who insist on such consistency vulnerable.
It’s like, “Who you gonna believe, me, or your lying eyes?”