
“Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error”
The Second Part, Chapter 26, p. 144
Leviathan (1651)
“Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error”
Source: The Doctrine of the Mean
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 267.
As quoted in The MacMillan Dictionary of Quotations (1989) by John Daintith, Hazel Egerton, Rosalind Ferguson, Anne Stibbs and Edmund Wright, p. 374.
"The Knight, Death and the Devil," lines 34-39
The Seven-League Crutches (1951)
Young India 1924-1926 (1927), p. 1285
1920s
Third State of the Union Address (7 December 1903)
1900s
Referring to Mr. Burns. Compare to Heart of Darkness' manager: "He was becoming confidential now, but I fancy my unresponsive attitude must have exasperated him at last, for he judged it necessary to inform me he feared neither God nor devil, let alone any mere man. I said I could see that very well..."
The Shadow Line (1915)