Michel de Montaigne

“ Augustus has escaped them, for there was in him so apparent, sudden, and
continual variety of actions all the whole course of his life, that he
has slipped away clear and undecided from the most daring critics. I can
more hardly believe a man's constancy than any other virtue, and believe
nothing sooner than the contrary. He that would judge of a man in detail
and distinctly, bit by bit, would oftener be able to speak the truth. ”

“ Though I always intend to speak well
of good things, and rather to interpret such things as fall out in the
best sense than otherwise, yet such is the strangeness of our condition,
that we are often pushed on to do well even by vice itself, if well-doing
were not judged by the intention only. One gallant action, therefore,
ought not to conclude a man valiant; if a man were brave indeed, he would
be always so, and upon all occasions. If it were a habit of valour and
not a sally, it would render a man equally resolute in all accidents ”

“ And, therefore, to make a right judgment of
a man, we are long and very observingly to follow his trace: if constancy
does not there stand firm upon her own proper base,
"Cui vivendi via considerata atque provisa est,"
["If the way of his life is thoroughly considered and traced out."
—Cicero, Paradox, v. 1.]
if the variety of occurrences makes him alter his pace (his path, I mean,
for the pace may be faster or slower) let him go ”