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Daily Inspiration Quote by Richard Bach

"Allow the world to live as it chooses, and allow yourself to live as you choose"

About this Quote

Permission is the stealth weapon in Richard Bach's line: not permission from others, but the kind you give yourself when you stop auditioning for approval. "Allow the world" is a quietly radical move because it reframes most daily frustration as a control fantasy. The world isn't a single opponent you can finally out-argue into sense; it's a mess of preferences, habits, and incentives. Bach's verb choice makes that chaos feel less like a personal affront and more like weather.

Then comes the second clause, which turns the blade inward. "Allow yourself" suggests the real blockade isn't society's judgment but your internalized version of it. The quote smuggles in a diagnosis: we often police our own lives using the world's supposed rules, even when no one is enforcing them. It's a two-step de-escalation: stop trying to manage other people's choices, then stop treating your own desires as suspect.

Context matters here. Bach, best known for Jonathan Livingston Seagull, made a career out of spiritualized individualism - self-actualization packaged as parable. That lineage includes 1970s self-help optimism, but this sentence avoids the usual swagger of "be yourself" slogans. It's less about rebellion than boundary-setting. "As it chooses" and "as you choose" put agency on both sides, implying coexistence rather than conquest.

The subtext is a trade: relinquish the exhausting project of correcting the world, and you reclaim the energy to live deliberately. It's not indifference; it's clarity about jurisdiction.

Quote Details

TopicFreedom
SourceHelp us find the source
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Bach, Richard. (2026, January 15). Allow the world to live as it chooses, and allow yourself to live as you choose. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/allow-the-world-to-live-as-it-chooses-and-allow-1332/

Chicago Style
Bach, Richard. "Allow the world to live as it chooses, and allow yourself to live as you choose." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/allow-the-world-to-live-as-it-chooses-and-allow-1332/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Allow the world to live as it chooses, and allow yourself to live as you choose." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/allow-the-world-to-live-as-it-chooses-and-allow-1332/. Accessed 11 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

Richard Bach

Richard Bach (born June 23, 1936) is a Novelist from USA.

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