Talk:no good deed goes unpunished

where does this idiom originate from?

Other possible meanings

I think that in addition to situations where the recipient is ungrateful, the phrase also covers situations where someone tries to do the right thing, but as a result of that encounters some hardship. Examples:

• Good Samaritan rescues someone & then is sued by that person for negligence OR sued by the municipality for the unauthorized practice of medicine. [Most states protect Good Samaritans.]

• Church in Washington, DC opens its property to the homeless during the winter. DC sues the Church for housing code violations. [The city just dropped the claim.]

In the words of TV tropes: "sometimes fate isn't satisfied until disaster befalls the good guy purely as a result of him doing the right thing."

In Literature:

• "The Sherlock Holmes story "The Gloria Scott" has Holmes' friend's father escape from a convict ship, but turn back to save a man's life... only for him to blackmail his rescuer and ultimately drive him to suicide."

• "To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, where the whole story revolves around a good deed that is punished, namely the protagonist's father, a defense attorney, making the unpopular decision to defend a black man who has been falsely accused. Even more so the reason that the black man is in trouble in the first place was because he did a number of good deeds for a troubled young white woman because he felt pity for her."

• In The Sound and the Fury, the outcome of Quentin trying to help out the girl who can't speak English.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished

Also from TVTropes "We all know that karma can be a *itch, but sometimes it's a total jerk*ss."

Not just a case of the helped people being ungrateful:

"If this happens because the hero doesn't want unnecessary violence, it can be a case of Pacifism Backfire. More often, helping out exposes the hero to some other danger, like the wrath of a villain whose plans were disrupted by said good deed, or the wrath of a populace that is opposed to the method of said helping out, such as in many Burn the Witch! stories ...."

I think the Wiktiomary definition should be expanded slightly to make it clear that it applies to these situatioms.

The concept of karma is an optimistic outlok on life. The concept that "no good deed goes unpunished" is a very pessimistic one, even a cynical one. Thus the phrase is often used in a sarcastic way after the bad thing has happened. Should these factors be included as usage notes (cynicism, sarcastic use)? Ileanadu (talk) 18:06, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

I added a section that went over this phrase's etymology and used two reputable sources. But, there was an issue: I could not create references, so I had to put the URLs in the text. So, if someone knows how to add references to this, please do so. Mateo Tembo (talk) 22:40, 31 October 2022 (UTC)