Never explain — your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.

The earliest printing known is the epigraph on the cover of The Philistine, February 1904 (seen here in the OCR of the archive.org scan); Quote Investigator (2023) credits Hubbard. It grew from a saying credited to Benjamin Jowett that Hubbard had put on the March 1903 cover (“Never explain, never retract, never apologize”). The Motto Book’s title page says its epigrams are by Fra Elbertus “assisted at times by” Solomon, Ruskin, Shakespeare and others, so the motto list alone does not prove authorship. In Britain it is sometimes credited to Victor Grayson, who used it in 1908 as “a beautiful proverb emanating from America”.

1. March 1903Before it · credited to Rev. Dr. Benjamin JowettHubbard puts a saying credited to Benjamin Jowett on the cover of The Philistine.Never explain, never retract, never apologize—get the thing done and let them howl!The Philistine: A Periodical of Protest, vol. 16, no. 4 (East Aurora: The Roycrofters, March 1903), cover, cover. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand.
2. February 1904Earliest found · credited to no one (Hubbard’s magazine)The saying appears as the epigraph on the cover of The Philistine, under the title.Never explain: your friends don’t require it, and your enemies won’t believe you, anyway.The Philistine: A Periodical of Protest, vol. 18, no. 3 (East Aurora: The Roycrofters, February 1904), cover, cover. Checked in the text of a page scan, not the image. Source
3. 22 February 1904Credited to Fra Elbertus (Elbert Hubbard)The Reno Gazette-Journal prints it as a saying of ‘Fra Elbertus’, Hubbard’s nickname.Reno Gazette-Journal (Reno, Nevada), “Lenten Season Observations”, 22 February 1904, p. 3. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand.
4. 11 March 1906Spread · credited to “The Pastor of His Flock” (Elbert Hubbard)A Los Angeles review of a Roycroft exhibition reports the motto among the illuminated sayings on its walls.Never explain. Your friends do not require it and your enemies won’t believe you anyway.Los Angeles Sunday Herald, “Work of Roycrofters Now On Exhibition”, 11 March 1906, section 2, p. 4. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand.
5. 22 September 1907Reworded · credited to no oneThe New York Times describes a framed motto on an apartment wall in the ‘do not need it’ wording.Never explain — your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you.The New York Times, “Think Mrs. Carter Sought White’s Life”, 22 September 1907, p. 7. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand.
6. 21 November 1908Spread · credited to an American proverbVictor Grayson uses it in a speech after his expulsion from the House of Commons, as ‘a beautiful proverb emanating from America’.Yorkshire Factory Times, “Grayson At Marsden”, 21 November 1908, p. 7. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand.
7. 1909Spread · credited to Fra Elbertus (Elbert Hubbard), ‘assisted at times by’ othersThe Motto Book, the Roycrofters’ catalogue of wall mottoes, lists it as No. 127.Never explain—your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anywayFra Elbertus [Elbert Hubbard], The Motto Book; Being a Catalogue of Epigrams (East Aurora: The Roycrofters, 1909), p. 31. Checked on a page scan. Source
8. 1923Spread · credited to Elbert HubbardThe posthumous Roycroft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams prints the 1904 wording among his epigrams.Never explain: your friends don’t require it, and your enemies won’t believe you anyway.Elbert Hubbard, Roycroft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams (East Aurora: The Roycrofters, 1923), p. 146. Checked in the text of a page scan, not the image. Source

A motto Hubbard put on the cover of The Philistine in February 1904 (‘Never explain: your friends don’t require it, and your enemies won’t believe you, anyway’), the year after he had put there a saying credited to Benjamin Jowett: ‘Never explain, never retract, never apologize—get the thing done and let them howl!’ The Roycrofters then sold it as an illuminated wall motto; by 1907 a framed copy in the ‘do not need it’ wording was reported on an apartment wall, and the 1909 Motto Book, the catalogue of those mottoes, lists it in that wording.

Justifying yourself is wasted effort: people who are on your side will trust you without it, and people against you will not be persuaded by it.

• A misquotationNever explain. Your friends do not need it, and your enemies won’t believe it, anyhow. Victor Grayson’s form in a 1908 speech, which he called an American proverb (Yorkshire Factory Times, per Quote Investigator); The Times Book of Quotations (2000) credits Grayson. Where it was seen

Wisdom

• It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not. André Gide
• Every man has a right to his opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts. Bernard Baruch
• The best way of avenging thyself is not to become like the wrong doer. Marcus Aurelius
• To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. (misattributed) Ralph Waldo Emerson
• It does not matter what you bear, but how you bear it. Seneca the Younger

• quoteinvestigator.com/2023/01/24/explain-friends (Quote Investigator, ‘Never Explain. Your Friends Do Not Need It and Your Enemies Will Not Believe You Anyway’, 24 January 2023)
• en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Elbert_Hubbard (Quotes: “Never explain — your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyhow”, credited to The Motto Book (1907); that edition not seen here)

Elbert Hubbard, Fra Elbertus [Elbert Hubbard], The Motto Book; Being a Catalogue of Epigrams by Fra Elbertus, Assisted at Times by Solomon, Ruskin, Shakespeare, Joaquin Miller, Benjamin Franklin, Walt Whitman, Ali Baba and Felix Cyrenius (East Aurora: The Roycrofters, copyright 1909 by Elbert Hubbard), p. 31, No. 127. Checked at Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/never-explain-your-friends-do-not-need-it/ (23 October 2026).

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