Wit & Attitude Quote by Cicero

Cicero’s line is a patrician slap disguised as common sense: yes, everyone messes up, but only an idiot turns a mistake into a lifestyle. The first clause offers mercy. “It is the nature of every person to error” makes room for human limitation, the kind of rhetorical generosity that lets an elite statesman sound humane rather than punitive. Then he tightens the vice. “Only the fool perseveres” shifts the question from guilt to character. The real sin isn’t getting it wrong; it’s stubbornness after evidence, counsel, or consequence has arrived.

The subtext is political as much as moral. Cicero lived in the late Roman Republic, a period when “error” wasn’t a private embarrassment but a public calamity: botched alliances, reckless populism, vendettas dressed up as principle. In that world, admitting you were wrong wasn’t weakness; it was a test of fitness to rule. “Perseveres” is doing a lot of work here. It implies time, repetition, an insistence on saving face. Cicero is diagnosing a psychology of power: the ego that would rather be consistent than correct.

The sentence also flatters the listener into self-reform. If error is universal, you’re not uniquely flawed; you’re simply human. But if perseverance is foolish, you can still choose to be wise by changing course. It’s a compact piece of social control, inviting humility while reserving contempt for the obstinate - a neat Roman fusion of ethics and governance.