"a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" meaning in English

See a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Proverb

Etymology: Quotation from Self-Reliance, an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson, published 1841. Head templates: {{head|en|proverb|head=}} a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, {{en-proverb}} a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds
  1. Consistency may not be the key to success; changes, even minor ones, must be introduced. Wikipedia link: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
    Sense id: en-a_foolish_consistency_is_the_hobgoblin_of_little_minds-en-proverb-5V1qeDgn Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English proverbs

Download JSON data for a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds meaning in English (1.0kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Quotation from Self-Reliance, an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson, published 1841.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "proverb",
        "head": ""
      },
      "expansion": "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds",
      "name": "head"
    },
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds",
      "name": "en-proverb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "proverb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English proverbs",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Consistency may not be the key to success; changes, even minor ones, must be introduced."
      ],
      "id": "en-a_foolish_consistency_is_the_hobgoblin_of_little_minds-en-proverb-5V1qeDgn",
      "links": [
        [
          "Consistency",
          "consistency"
        ]
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Ralph Waldo Emerson",
        "Self-Reliance"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Quotation from Self-Reliance, an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson, published 1841.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "proverb",
        "head": ""
      },
      "expansion": "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds",
      "name": "head"
    },
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds",
      "name": "en-proverb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "proverb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English proverbs"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Consistency may not be the key to success; changes, even minor ones, must be introduced."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Consistency",
          "consistency"
        ]
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Ralph Waldo Emerson",
        "Self-Reliance"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-24 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (82c8ff9 and f4967a5). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.