„Catch a man a fish, and you can sell it to him. Teach a man to fish, and you ruin a wonderful business opportunity“

— Karl Marx

Attributed to Marx (possibly in jest) in W. C. Privy's Original Bathroom Companion (2003).
Misattributed

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Jan. 11, 2022.

Karl Marx289

German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and … 1818 - 1883

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„Sell a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will put you out of a job.“

— Ron English American artist 1959

Ron English's Fauxlosophy (2016)

Fish

„Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.“

— Laozi semi-legendary Chinese figure, attributed to the 6th century, regarded as the author of the Tao Te Ching and founder of… -604

This quotation has been misattributed to Laozi; its origin is actually unknown (see "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime" on Wiktionary). This quotation has also been misattributed to Confucius and Guan Zhong.
Misattributed

Fish

„Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime. Teach a man to cycle and he will realize fishing is stupid and boring.“

— Desmond Tutu South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner 1931

Stupidity, Fish

„if you give a man a fish he'll eat for a day, if you teach a man to fish he'll eat all the fish you may have caught for yourself“

— Meg Cabot, book Darkest Hour

Source: Darkest Hour

Fish, Wise

„People love to say, “Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat for a lifetime.” What they don’t say is, “And it would be nice if you gave him a fishing rod.”“

— Trevor Noah, book Born a Crime

That’s the part of the analogy that’s missing.
page 190
Born a Crime

Fish, Love, Making love, People

„Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll buy a funny hat. Talk to a hungry man about fish, and you're a consultant.“

— Scott Adams cartoonist, writer 1957

Fish

„Ideas are like fish.
If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you've got to go deeper.“

— David Lynch American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor 1946

Introduction, p. 1
Catching the Big Fish (2006)
Source: Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity
Context: Ideas are like fish.
If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you've got to go deeper.
Down deep, the fish are more powerful and more pure. They're huge and abstract. And they're very beautiful.

Idea, Fish, Water

„Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Give a man a sub-prime fish loan and you're in business, buddy.“

— Stephen Colbert American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor 1964

A parody of the "Give a man a fish..." proverb alluding to the subprime mortgage crisis of the aughts on The Colbert Report (14 May 2008)

Business, Fish

„Binabik had taught him to do only what he could at any given time. “You cannot catch three fish with two hands,” the little man often said.“

— Tad Williams novelist 1957

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, To Green Angel Tower (1993), Part 2, Chapter 24, “The Graylands” (p. 540).

Fish, Time

„Oh, you who've been a-fishing will indorse me
when I say
That it always is the biggest fish you catch that
gets away!“

— Eugene Field, A Little Book of Western Verse

Our Biggest Fish http://books.google.com/books?id=odM-AAAAYAAJ&q=%22Oh+you+who've+been+a-fishing+will+indorse+me+when+I+say+That+it+always+is+the+biggest+fish+you+catch+that+gets+away%22&pg=PA184#v=onepage, st. 4
A Little Book of Western Verse (1889)

Fish

„The FBI may decide to leave a suspected mole undisturbed for years in order to feed him false critical information at an opportune moment or to use him to catch a bigger fish.“

— Newton Lee American computer scientist

Google It: Total Information Awareness, 2016

Fish, Falseness

„Now that man can fly through the air like a bird … and swim in the sea like a fish, wouldn't it be wonderful if he could just walk the earth like a man?“

— Jack Paar American author, radio and television comedian and talk show host 1918 - 2004

My Saber is Bent http://books.google.com/books?id=MO-mqER9TrsC&q=%22Now+that+man+can+fly+through+the+air+like+a+bird%22+%22and+swim+in+the+sea+like+a+fish+wouldn't+it+be+wonderful+if+he+could+just+walk+the+earth+like+a+man%22&pg=PA79#v=onepage (1961)

Bird, Fish, Flying, Sea

„What a strange machine man is! You fill him with bread, wine, fish, and radishes, and out comes sighs, laughter, and dreams.“

— Nikos Kazantzakis, book Zorba the Greek

Source: Zorba the Greek (1946), Ch. 23

Dreams, Fish, Laughter, Wine

„One man's fish is another man's poisson.“

— Mark Gatiss, The Vesuvius Club

Source: The Vesuvius Club

Fish

„The literate man is a sucker for propaganda... You cannot propagandize a native. You can sell him rum and trinkets, but you cannot sell him ideas.“

— Marshall McLuhan Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a communicatio… 1911 - 1980

1970s, The Education of Mike McManus, TVOntario, December 28 1977

„A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm“

— William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Source: Hamlet

Fish

„It's like catching a fish, you know what I mean? It's the fish that's beautiful, not the fisherman. And I think whoever hasn't understood that attitude in Queens is not here any more. And if I ever think the fisherman's better than the fish, I hope someone fuckin' fires me too.“

— Josh Homme American musician 1973

" Dazed & Confused Magazine | Josh Homme | Sept'10 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf8MQqPIroc", Dazed & Confused Magazine (September 2010)

Beauty, Hope, Thinking, Fish

„Then there is the other secret. There isn't any symbolysm [sic]. The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish. The shark are all sharks no better and no worse. All the symbolism that people say is shit. What goes beyond is what you see beyond when you know.“

— Ernest Hemingway American author and journalist 1899 - 1961

Letter to Bernard Berenson (13 September 1952); published in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917–1961 (1981) edited by Carlos Baker

People, Boy, Secret, Fish

„Gamblers wager for the sake of playing. Among those who fish for pleasure, the best fisherman is not the one who catches the most fish but the one who enjoys fishing the most. The point of playing is that the play has no point.“

— John Gray, book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

As It Is: Playing With Fate (p. 196)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)

Pleasure, Fish

„We will teach people to fish, rather than provide them fish. We will bring schemes that will create jobs.“

— Anbumani Ramadoss Indian politician 1968

Announcing his candidature for the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, as quoted in " Anbumani projects himself as CM candidates, seeks vote for change http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/coimbatore/Anbumani-projects-himself-as-CM-candidates-seeks-vote-for-change/articleshow/48047305.cms", The Times of India (13 July 2015)

People, Fish

„Catch a man a fish, and you can sell it to him. Teach a man to fish, and you ruin a wonderful business opportunity“

Karl Marx289

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