The leopard cannot change its spots


We cannot change our basic nature. This saying is adapted from words in the biblical Book of Jeremiah: “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?”

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.