Literary notes about inconstant (AI summary)
The term “inconstant” has long been a powerful literary device used to evoke the fleeting, unpredictable nature of both the external world and human character. In works ranging from early Romantic texts to Enlightenment treatises, authors deploy the word to describe the mutable quality of natural phenomena—such as the “inconstant sun” that brightens the green hills [1] or the ever-changing winds of fortune [2, 3]—as well as the variability inherent in human emotions and relationships, as seen when love is likened to the moon’s shifting phases [4] or when a character’s faithfulness is called into question [5, 6]. This dual application underscores a broader philosophical commentary on the impermanence of constancy itself—as both personal ideals and societal foundations can be as erratic as nature’s own rhythms [7, 8, 9].
- Over the green hills flies the inconstant sun.
— from The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Fortune was ever accounted inconstant: and each dog has but his day.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle - Well, my friend, fortune is inconstant, as the chaplain of the regiment said.
— from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet - O swear not by the moon, th’inconstant moon, That monthly changes in her circled orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable. ROMEO.
— from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare - "How inconstant are your feelings!
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - I will not allow it to be more man's nature than woman's to be inconstant and forget those they do love, or have loved.
— from Persuasion by Jane Austen - Human nature is too inconstant to admit of any such regularity.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume - The disposition of my countrie men, is more inconstant then I would wish: which we haue felt, to our great losse and decaie.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - No wonder a principle so inconstant and fallacious should lead us into errors, when implicitly followed (as it must be) in all its variations.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume