Give a man a fish…
Apropos of absolutely nothing, I had a brief conversation today about the saying: “Give a man a fish, you’ve fed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you’ve fed him for a lifetime.” Somebody wondered whether that came from the Bible (it doesn’t).
Leaping quickly to google its actual origin, I came across this guy, Ross Nordeen, a libertarian-conservative Thomas Sowell fan who’s got a lot of fun stuff on his website, including:
The Original
“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime”—Author unknown
The Improvements
“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you will not have to listen to his incessant whining about how hungry he is.”—Author unknown
“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you can sell him fishing equipment.”—Author unknown
“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to use the Net and he won’t bother you for weeks.”—Author unknown
“Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Unless he doesn’t like sushi—then you also have to teach him to cook.”—Auren Hoffman, Herald Philosopher
“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he will sit in the boat and drink beer all day.”—OldFox
“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime. Teach a man to sell fish and he eats steak.”—Author unknown
“Teach a man to fish, and you introduce another competitor into the overcrowded fishing industry. Give a man a fish, and you stimulate demand for your product”
— Mickey the Fish, Sep 04 2000
Both disturbing and oddly compelling.
By the way, google says the actual saying comes from Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu.
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