“Do good without looking at who” is a popular proverb that means that you don’t need approvals or comparisons to do good.
“Do good without looking at who” also has the connotation that good is always done selflessly.
The origin of this proverb is very difficult to determine as everything that has been transmitted by oral tradition.
It is suggested that the proverb “do good without looking at who” has its origin in the Bible. There are many verses in the Bible that can be interpreted that way, but the phrase does not appear anywhere literally. The verse with the closest meaning is that of Proverbs, 3:27, which says: “Do not refuse to do good to those who are due, when you have the power to do it.”
At the same time, this proverb is associated with the Peruvian writer and journalist Manuel Ricardo Palma Soriano (1833-1919), for his story “Do well without looking at who” in the “Fifth series” of his book Peruvian traditions .
“Do well without looking at who” by Ricardo Palma
The story “Do well without looking at whom” by Ricardo Palma occurs in Arequipa, in the year 1737. He tells the story of Juana María Valladolid, who gives refuge to the murderer of his own son, but despite his suffering and pain, he offers to the murderer the only 56 pesos he had and his son’s horse to escape.
Two years later, news comes that the murderer is working honestly and the priest, knowing the story, will give him 56 pesos every month. But unfortunately for Juana María Valladolid, her grandson, son of her deceased son, is robbed.
Years later, an old man comes to Joan’s house with a young priest who was the stolen grandson. And much later, that same young priest, old, would distribute his fortune in gifts of a thousand pesos to the descendants of Juana María Valladolid, the Collota to whom everyone blesses his memory.
