No good deed goes unpunished
No act of charity goes unresented
No good deed goes unpunished
That's my new creed
My road of good intentions
Led where such roads always lead
No good deed goes unpunished!
No good deed goes unpunished
All helpful urges should be circumvented
No good deed goes unpunished
Sure, I meant well — well, look at what well-meant did!
No act of charity goes unresented
No good deed goes unpunished
That's my new creed
My road of good intentions
Led where such roads always lead
No good deed goes unpunished!
No good deed goes unpunished
All helpful urges should be circumvented
No good deed goes unpunished
Sure, I meant well — well, look at what well-meant did!
— Elphaba, "No Good Deed" from Wicked
"Dear diary. On Friday I had a job, a fiancee, a home, and a life that made sense. Then I found an injured girl bleeding on the pavement, and I tried to be a Good Samaritan. Now I've got no fiancee, no home, no job, and I'm walking around a couple of hundred feet under the streets of London with the projected life expectancy of a suicidal fruit fly."
— Richard Mayhew, Neverwhere
"I’d done the heroic thing. Drawn Leviathan away from those in the shelter who were still alive. A part of me was proud of myself. The rest of me? Faced with the idea of spending the rest of my life in a wheelchair? I felt like an idiot of epic proportions. I’d bought into the idea of the grand, noble gesture, and in the here and now it felt like I had to convince myself that what I had done mattered. It sure as shit didn’t seem to matter to anyone else."
— Skitter, Worm
"He (James Grayson) was seen as a hero by many, but desertion in a time of war was a capital offense. And the law would make no exceptions."
— Colonel Parker. Resistance Retribution
"Nobody's going to tell you nothing. They're wise to your act. You got rules. The Joker, he's got no rules. Nobody's going to cross him for you."
"I don't get it. I finally did a job where I wasn't lazy, stupid or corrupt. And now I'm gonna get killed for it!"
— Homer Simpson, The Simpsons
"Damn brat, I'll sue!"
— Masayoshi Shido after the protagonist tried to stop him from sexually assaulting a woman, Persona 5
Mike Ehrmantraut: I used to be a beat cop, a long time ago. I'd get called on domestic disputes all the time. Hundreds, probably, over the years. But there was this one guy, this one piece of shit that I will never forget. Gordie. He looked like Bo Svenson. You remember him? Walking Tall? You don't remember?
Walter White: No.
Mike: Anyway, big boy, 270, 280 but his wife or whatever she was, his lady was real small, like a bird. Wrists like little branches. Anyway, my partner and I'd get called out there every weekend and one of us would pull her aside and say: "Come on, tonight's the night we press charges." This wasn't one of those "deep down, he loves me" setups. We got a lot of those, but not this. This girl was scared. She wasn't gonna cross him, no way, no how. Nothing we could do but pass her to the EMT's, put him a car, drive him downtown, throw him in a drunk tank. He sleeps it off, next morning, out he goes. Back home. But one night my partner's out sick, and it's just me. The call comes in and it's the usual crap. Broke her nose in the shower kind of thing. So I cuff him, put him in the car and away we go. Only that night we're driving into town and this sideways asshole is in my back seat humming "Danny Boy." And it just rubbed me wrong. So instead of left, I go right, out into nowhere. And I kneel him down and I put my revolver in his mouth and I told him, "This is it. This is how it ends." And he's crying, going to the bathroom all over himself. Swearing to God he's gonna leave her alone. Screaming, much as you can with a gun in your mouth. And I told him to be quiet. That I needed to think about what I was gonna do here. And, of course, he got quiet goes still and real quiet. Like a dog waiting for dinner scraps. Then we just stood there for a while, me, acting like I'm thinking things over and Prince Charming kneeling in the dirt with shit in his pants. And after a few minutes, I took the gun out of his mouth and I say, "So help me, if you ever touch her again I will such and such and such, and blah, blah, blah."
Walt: It was just a warning?
Mike: Of course. Just trying to do the right thing. But two weeks later he killed her. Of course. Caved her head in with the base of a Waring blender. We got there, there was so much blood you could taste the metal. Moral of the story is I chose a half measure when I should have gone all the way. I'll never make that mistake again. No more half measures, Walter.
Walter White: No.
Mike: Anyway, big boy, 270, 280 but his wife or whatever she was, his lady was real small, like a bird. Wrists like little branches. Anyway, my partner and I'd get called out there every weekend and one of us would pull her aside and say: "Come on, tonight's the night we press charges." This wasn't one of those "deep down, he loves me" setups. We got a lot of those, but not this. This girl was scared. She wasn't gonna cross him, no way, no how. Nothing we could do but pass her to the EMT's, put him a car, drive him downtown, throw him in a drunk tank. He sleeps it off, next morning, out he goes. Back home. But one night my partner's out sick, and it's just me. The call comes in and it's the usual crap. Broke her nose in the shower kind of thing. So I cuff him, put him in the car and away we go. Only that night we're driving into town and this sideways asshole is in my back seat humming "Danny Boy." And it just rubbed me wrong. So instead of left, I go right, out into nowhere. And I kneel him down and I put my revolver in his mouth and I told him, "This is it. This is how it ends." And he's crying, going to the bathroom all over himself. Swearing to God he's gonna leave her alone. Screaming, much as you can with a gun in your mouth. And I told him to be quiet. That I needed to think about what I was gonna do here. And, of course, he got quiet goes still and real quiet. Like a dog waiting for dinner scraps. Then we just stood there for a while, me, acting like I'm thinking things over and Prince Charming kneeling in the dirt with shit in his pants. And after a few minutes, I took the gun out of his mouth and I say, "So help me, if you ever touch her again I will such and such and such, and blah, blah, blah."
Walt: It was just a warning?
Mike: Of course. Just trying to do the right thing. But two weeks later he killed her. Of course. Caved her head in with the base of a Waring blender. We got there, there was so much blood you could taste the metal. Moral of the story is I chose a half measure when I should have gone all the way. I'll never make that mistake again. No more half measures, Walter.
"There's an old saying that "no good deed goes unpunished". Well, we thought we did a whole lot of good that time we eliminated the Shredder. And... that... other time we eliminated the Shredder. And... the time after that. Am I forgetting one? The point is: now, with Shredder out of the picture, the Mob, the Foot and the Purple Dragons are all duking it out for control of his empire. So, instead of making things better, we actually made them worse. No one felt more responsible than my brother Leo. And no one felt less responsible than my brother Raph. Still, we had to do something. So, we tracked down the remnants of the Foot to this rundown flophouse. We were about to take them down when this big, honking robot shows up and starts shooting up the whole place! So much for our good deed."
— Michelangelo Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003), "City at War (2)"
"The good die young."
— Proverb
"With kindness comes naïveté. Courage becomes foolhardiness. And dedication has no reward. If you can't accept any of that, you are not fit to be a magical girl."
—Akemi Homura, Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Elizabeth: Commodore, I really must protest! Pirate or not, this man saved my life!
Norrington: One good deed is not enough to redeem a man of a lifetime of wickedness.
Captain Jack: Though it seems enough to condemn him.
Norrington: In-deed.
Varys: What madness led you to tell the queen you'd learned the truth about Joffrey's birth?
Ned Stark: The madness of mercy. That she might save her children.
Varys: Ah, the children. It's always the innocents who suffer. It wasn't the wine that killed Robert, nor the boar. The wine slowed him down and the boar ripped him open, but it was your mercy that killed the king.
Whoever corrects a mocker invites insults;
Whoever rebukes the wicked incurs abuse.
—The Bible, Proverbs 9:7 (New International Version)
"Even the right choices have consequences."
—Kaidan Alenko's Father, Mass Effect Foundation
"We did everything right, everything that was asked of us, and still— STILL it came to this!"
— Arbert, Final Fantasy XIV
"Be careful of charity and kindness, lest you do more harm with open hands than with a clenched fist."
"I will say, I think it passing odd that I am loved by one for a kindness I never did, and reviled by so many for my finest act."
— Jaime Lannister, A Clash of Kings
"Trust me, Peter... when you try to fix people, there are always consequences."
— Dr. Curtis Connors / The Lizard, Spider-Man: No Way Home
You wanna know how the Brotherhood got to be the fun-loving psychos they are today? Well, it's all thanks to you. Well, thanks to the Darkness. There was this one time- only one time- that the Brotherhood succeeded in trapping the Darkness. And it drove them insane. The Darkness is not to be fucked with. And even when imprisoned, it's a force to be reckoned with. For decades, the Brotherhood watched over the Siphon, the Darkness stirring within it. It wasn't long before the Brotherhood decided the only way to save the world was to destroy it. Gee, I wonder who gave them that idea? There was one Brother who stood firm against the taint- no, not- not that kind of taint, get your mind out of the gutter, FOCUS! His faith was so iron-clad, the Darkness couldn't touch him. When he learned what his fellow Brothers planned to do, he knew there was only one option. He set the Darkness free. Now, this didn't make the Angelus happy. She returned to Earth just to deliver the granddaddy of all smitings. That one faithful Brother was reduced to ash just moments after he'd save the world. The Angelus' rage burned so hot, it consumed the Brother's soul entirely. He stopped the Brotherhood from destroying all creation, and in return, he became the first human to ever meet non-existence. In all of Heaven and Earth, the only thing left of him are these ashes. The "Ashes of the Unnamed." Kinda lends credence to that saying "no good deed goes unpunished."
—Johnny Powell, The Darkness II
The clock strikes thirteen on the dot
Another whistleblower finds a little glowing spot
Right between his eyes in the middle of his forehead
For revealing lies, his prize is that he falls dead
Another whistleblower finds a little glowing spot
Right between his eyes in the middle of his forehead
For revealing lies, his prize is that he falls dead
— Dan Bull, "Hey There NSA!"
"You did a great kindness to a man far from home. You couldn't have known he would repay you so poorly."
—Kuji, Chronin
Bruce: I saved your life.
Ra's al-Ghul/Henri Ducard: I warned you about compassion, Bruce.
Ra's al-Ghul/Henri Ducard: I warned you about compassion, Bruce.
Aledar: ...You really shouldn't have gotten involved, you know.
Tasim: So, what? I should have just let you bleed out in my home? Don't be ridiculous.
Aledar: Yes! You should have! Because now, not only have I been arrested for crimes against the crown, but you've also been outed as one of the cursed. Wouldn't have happened if you had just... stood by.
Tasim: ...It was the right thing to do. I couldn't just stand by when there was something I could do to help.
Aledar: Well, a lot of good that's done us. You know no one gets out of here, right? When they take you, you're never heard from again! So. That's where we're at.
Tasim: So, what? I should have just let you bleed out in my home? Don't be ridiculous.
Aledar: Yes! You should have! Because now, not only have I been arrested for crimes against the crown, but you've also been outed as one of the cursed. Wouldn't have happened if you had just... stood by.
Tasim: ...It was the right thing to do. I couldn't just stand by when there was something I could do to help.
Aledar: Well, a lot of good that's done us. You know no one gets out of here, right? When they take you, you're never heard from again! So. That's where we're at.
Sent to a prison where the heroes are judged as traitors,
Accused of treason by his own.
Sentenced by countrymen under pressure of foreign influence,
Men he once fought to free
Accused of treason by his own.
Sentenced by countrymen under pressure of foreign influence,
Men he once fought to free
— Sabaton, "Inmate 4859"
