Gerry
Mind Your (My) Own Business
Meaning: to not meddle, to stay out of other people’s matters
To follow this course of action was recorded from ancient times. Plato in his polemic on justice stated that “Justice means minding one’s own business and not meddling with other men’s concerns.” The Bible also used this phrase on several occasions, for example, we find it in Thessalonians 4:11 where “Brothers and sisters … make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you”
By the 16th century ‘Mind your own business’ had found a place in the English language, although it was obviously already in common usage. Chaucer alluded to the concept in his description of the Merchant: “This worthy man made good use of his wits; no one knew he was in debt, he conducted himself in such a stately way, with his bargaining and his borrowings.” In other words, he minded his own business.
As far as I can find the first use of the phrase as we know it today appeared in John Clarke’s collection of quotes for children that went by the grandiose title of Paroemiologia (1639) which simply means the study of proverbs, and Lewis Carroll in his famous non-sequitur in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) had the Duchess exclaiming “If everyone minded their own business, why then the world would go round a great deal faster than it does.”
More recently Calvin Coolidge, as 30th President of the United States and a man noted for his wit and dry humour said that, “Perhaps one of the most important accomplishments of my administration has been minding my own business.”
He was obviously a conservative.
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