quote · Words worth keeping
If other people do not understand our behavior—so what? Their request that we must only do what they understand is an attempt to dictate to us. If this is being "asocial" or "irrational" in their eyes, so be it. Mostly they resent our freedom and our courage to be ourselves. We owe nobody an explanation or an accounting, as long as our acts do not hurt or infringe on them. How many lives have been ruined by this need to "explain," which usually implies that the explanation be "understood," i.e. approved. Let your deeds be judged, and from your deeds, your real intentions, but know that a free person owes an explanation only to himself—to his reason and his conscience—and to the few who may have a justified claim for explanation.
If other people do not understand our behavior—so what? Their request that we must only do what they understand is an attempt to dictate to us. If this is being "asocial" or "irrational" in their eyes, so be it. Mostly they resent our freedom and our courage to be ourselves. We owe nobody an explanation or an accounting, as long as our acts do not hurt or infringe on them. How many lives have been ruined by this need to "explain," which usually implies that the explanation be "understood," i.e. approved. Let your deeds be judged, and from your deeds, your real intentions, but know that a free person owes an explanation only to himself—to his reason and his conscience—and to the few who may have a justified claim for explanation.
Approximate author period: c. 1940 AD · modern
Meaning not yet available
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- Author or tradition
- Erich Fromm
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1940 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1900 to 1980; Wikidata Q57085, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q57085 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 3712; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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