“No good deed goes unpunished.”
Roman Candle (Leticia Baldridge), p. 129 (1956)
Source: This famous quip was first quoted in print by Luce's social secretary Letitia Baldrige in Roman Candle (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1956), 129: "When I would entreat her to engage in resolving a specific case, she replied, 'No good deed goes unpunished, Tish, remember that.'" Oscar Wilde, Billy Wilder, and Andrew Mellon have also been cited as sources, but without written evidence.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Clare Boothe Luce 7
American writer, politician, ambassador, journalist and ant… 1903–1987Related quotes
[In the Company of the Holy Mother, 124-125]
τί λοιπὸν ἢ ἀπολαύειν τοῦ ζῆν συνάπτοντα ἄλλο ἐπ ἄλλῳ ἀγαθόν, ὥστε μηδὲ τὸ βραχύτατον διάστημα ἀπολείπειν;
XII, 29
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book XII
“We will take the good-will for the deed.”
Source: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532–1564), Fourth Book (1548, 1552), Chapter 49.