Daily Inspiration Quote by Titus Livius

Livy is calling out a talent that passes for intelligence in public life: not solving problems, but rerouting responsibility. The bite of the line comes from its deflationary trick. “Clever” is usually praise; Livy uses it like a sneer, narrowing human ingenuity down to a single, shabby competence. It’s less a moral lecture than an anthropological note from someone who has watched too many leaders survive failure by narrating it away.

The verb “shifting” matters. Blame isn’t confronted or disproven; it’s treated like cargo to be moved, dumped, and relabeled. That image captures how power works in practice: guilt and consequences slide down hierarchies until they stick to someone expendable. Livy’s Roman world ran on public honor, patronage, and the constant risk of disgrace. In that environment, accountability isn’t just ethical; it’s existential. A mismanaged campaign, a riot, a bad omen interpreted the wrong way could end careers or invite prosecution. Of course people get “clever.”

As a historian writing under Augustus, Livy is also threading a needle. Openly accusing the ruling order is dangerous; diagnosing a timeless habit is safer. The line reads like a general truth, but its subtext is political: when institutions prize face-saving, blame becomes a currency, not a verdict. Livy’s warning isn’t that people err; it’s that they become ingenious in avoiding the price of error, and that ingenuity can look an awful lot like leadership.