— Condensed from Gandhi’s autobiographical writings; the popular one-liner compresses a documented thought
About this quote
हिन्दी में
आपकी अनुमति के बिना कोई आपको आहत नहीं कर सकता।
What it means
Everything depends on which injury the sentence is about. It is a claim about contempt — about whether another person’s low opinion of you becomes your own opinion of yourself. That transfer does require something from you, and the line names it permission, which is accurate for insult and for humiliation. It says nothing about an injury arriving without a verdict attached.
Stated this flatly, though, the sentence travels badly, and it is worth saying so plainly: it is routinely quoted at people who have been genuinely harmed, where it arrives as an accusation — you allowed this. That use reverses the sentence’s direction. It was meant as a description of one’s own inner room, addressed inward, and the moment it is pointed at someone else it stops being a discipline and becomes a way of declining to help.
What it teaches you
Keep the sentence in the first person only. Use it on the remark that is still circling in your head at midnight, and ask what you would have to believe about the speaker for their verdict to be worth this much of your night. Do not offer it to anyone else — when someone tells you they were hurt, this line is the least useful thing in your possession.
अर्थ और सीख
यह वाक्य उस चोट के बारे में है जो किसी की तिरस्कारपूर्ण राय से लगती है — वह राय आपकी अपनी राय तभी बनती है जब आप उसे मानें, और उसी सहमति को यहाँ अनुमति कहा गया है। पर इसे किसी दूसरे पर लागू करना इसका उल्टा इस्तेमाल है, जो पीड़ित को ही दोषी ठहरा देता है। इसे केवल अपने ऊपर लगाइए — उस बात पर, जो रात को दिमाग़ में घूमती रहती है; किसी दुखी व्यक्ति को यह वाक्य सुनाना सबसे बेकार मदद है।
Where it comes from
A condensation of genuine Gandhi: in his autobiographical writings he expressed that no one can hurt the self within without one’s own cooperation — the popular one-liner compresses a documented thought.
