Most other passions have their periods of fatigue and rest, their suffering and their cure; but obstinacy has no resource, and the first wound is mortal.

Most strong feelings burn themselves out. Anger tires, fear loosens, wanting fades once you have the thing, and each of them carries its own remedy somewhere inside. Stubbornness has no such cycle. It does not exhaust itself, and the one cure available, admitting you were wrong, is precisely the move it exists to prevent, so a position taken in stubbornness tends to be held to the end.

Think of a stand you are currently holding and ask what evidence would change it. If nothing would, the stand is no longer about the matter at hand. Say the one sentence that concedes a point, and notice that nothing collapses.