English equivalent of "To those you try to help, he says I am only right." [closed]

Question

There is an old Indian Marathi saying (Mhan in marathi)

Jyacha karava bhala to mhanato majhach khara (Pronunciation: Jya-ch K-ra-v Bh-l, To Mh-n-to Ma-zch Kh-r)

It means

Those you try to help say that they are right.

The meaning is if you try to help someone, a certain category of people wouldn't think that you have helped them from literally dying or saved them from a big mess waiting to happen (usually in a organization or on the streets or at home too). They would see you as a wolf in sheep's clothing waiting to take advantage of you (and in the video even sue you).

So the meaning is howsoever you try help some particular people, they think in their mind that they are righteous in accusing you (putting you in trouble for taking advantage of them not helping them or actually messing you their problem more when you have literally helped them).

The question is, is there an equivalent saying in English for this phenomenon* or can anyone provide an informal saying that would be succinct?

*This can be said thankless job but it goes beyond that because ironically the person is just not being thankless, he/she is creating an adversity for the helper in return.

Answer 1

Bite the hand that feeds you

This idiom is used by an observer to say that a party being helped attacks the helper. (The observer has a sense of unfairness about the transaction. But there is probably not a sense that the disadvantaged attacker sees the feeding hand as taking an unfair advantage.)

Show ingratitude, turn against a benefactor. For example, The college gave me a scholarship, so I shouldn't bite the hand that feeds me and criticize its hiring policies. Used about 600 b.c. by the Greek poet Sappho, this metaphor of a dog biting its master was first recorded in English in 1711.

Source: The Free Dictionary

Answer 2

“No good deed [ever] goes unpunished.”

This is more general than how you described your phrase, because it might not be the person you helped who “punishes” you (you might say it when you get in trouble with someone else, instead).

In origin, this is a cynical reversal of either or both of these beliefs:

• “No good deed goes unrewarded”
• “No evil deed goes unpunished”

Strangely, I would not consider these as fixed idioms, unlike “no good deed goes unpunished”. They are common ideas, but I can’t recall hearing them expressed in those exact words.

Answer 3

“There’s no pleasing some people”

This saying that captures the idea of a person (or people) who would never thank you for helping them. It’s informal in tone, and is used in both American and British English.

This does not imply that the person would think of you as an enemy for helping you, only that if you do help them, they will just find something new to complain about.

Answer 4

A particularly harsh English proverb along these lines appears in the following form in Wolfgang Mieder, A Dictionary of American Proverbs (1992):

Save a thief from the gallows and he'll be the first to cut your throat.

Versions of this proverb go very far back in English writing. Bartlett Whiting, Proverbs, Sentences, and Proverbial Phrases from English Writings Mainly Before 1500 (1968), lists instances dating to circa 1300, in an entry worded as follows:

Deliver a thief from the gallow(s) and he hates you after

The sense of the expression is that a person of bad character is inherently ungrateful to would-be benefactors and exceedingly unlikely to reform if given another chance. James Kelly, A Complete Collection of Scottish Proverbs: Explained and Made Intelligible to the English (1721) adds a real-life instance to his rendition of the proverb:

Buy a Thief from the Gallows, and he'll help to hang your self.

I knew a very worthy Clergyman in Scotland, who, by his Interest and Importunity, saved a Villain from the Gallows: And twelve Years after, he was the first that rabbled him, and the sorest upon him.

(A subsequent edition of Kelly's book (1818) reports that an English equivalent of the saying is "Put a snake in your bosom, and it will sting when it is warm.")

That such a person should repay kindness with unkindness is hardly surprising. And that such a person is—according to folk wisdom—unlikely to reform is evident in a kindred proverb that appears in Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia: Adagies and Proverbs; Wise Sentences and Witty Sayings (1732):

The Thief is sorry he is to be hanged, but not that he is a Thief.

Oswald Dykes, English Proverbs, with Moral Reflexions (1713) devotes four pages of exposition to the proverb, including a more general discussion of ingratitude:

Save a Thief from Hanging, and he'll cut your Throat.

...

It [the proverb] is as severe a Lecture also against doing an unthankful Person a Kindness, as against saving a Thief from the Gallows. There is as much Imprudence in the one, as Danger in the other ; for nothing can engage an Ingrate against abusing his Benefactor, or a Thief unhang'd against cutting his Friend's Throat.

'Tis impossible to oblige an ungrateful Wretch ; so that Favours are but thrown away upon him, and lost for ever. If you respect him, he'll slight or revile you ; if you relieve him, he'll bring you into Trouble ; and if you save his Life, in short, he'll endanger yours for't. These are the Returns he usually makes his best Friends.

Answer 5

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

This is a common English expression that basically says that no matter whether you try to help or not, people are going to hate you for it, so you’re damned either way.

If you help, they will accuse you of belittling them, virtue signaling your own generosity, or even trying to harm them in some way.

If you don’t help, those very same people will accuse you of withholding or being indifferent to their suffering when you could have done something about it.

There’s no way to win in this situation (where “winning” in this context means having a person be appreciative of your efforts on their behalf).

Answer 6

You’re dealing with a “choosing beggar” (or “choosy beggar”)

I think my other answer is better, but I offer this for completeness. It’s more specific than your phrase, and may not be applicable.

It derives from the saying, “beggars can’t be choosers”, meaning that when someone freely offers you help, it is wrong to be critical about how the help is given. So a “choosing/choosy beggar” is someone who behaves badly in this way. They criticise how you helped them, expecting you to do more or to do it differently.

Answer 7

There's an old idiom, which I cannot find now in a quick search: "Help some people and they'll never forgive you". Applies where the person doesn't think you helped them correctly, doesn't believe your contribution really benefited them, or takes offense that your assistance was in conflict with the solution they believe wrongly was correct.

There may be applications, in current issues, for example, in trying to convince a family member to get a covid shot, when they've become convinced such shots are dangerous.

Answer 8

The notion of generally being suspicious of someone else's generosity can be captured with look a gift horse in the mouth

• to look in a critical way at something that has been given to one
  I noticed the guitar wasn't made of real wood, but I didn't say anything because you shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.
  _{Merriam-Webster}