One good turn deserves another is a proverb with roots in ancient times. We will examine the meaning of the proverb one good turn deserves another, where the expression came from, and some examples of its use in sentences.
One good turn deserves another means that when someone does a favor for you, you should do a favor for them in repayment; kindness should be rewarded with kindness. The proverb one good turn deserves another has been in use since the 1400s and may be found in John Heywood’s A dialogue conteinyng the nomber of all the proverbes in the englishe tongue published in 1546 as: “One good turn asketh another.” The sentiment behind one good turn deserves another is credited to Aesop, a Greek storyteller who lived in the 500s B.C. His story, The Serpent and the Eagle, tells the tale of a farmer who witnessed a life-and-death struggle between a serpent and an eagle. The farmer freed the eagle from the serpent, but as the serpent departed, he spat venom into the farmer’s drinking flask. The farmer didn’t notice, and began to take a drink from his flask, but the eagle knocked the flask from the farmer’s hands to save him from being poisoned. The moral of Aesop’s fable is: One good turn deserves another.
Examples
One good turn deserves another, and the Butterfly Palace was able to reopen in June 2020 with limited capacity, social distancing and required masks. (Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette)
And right now, I can see that one good turn deserves another as my friend Chris Gabrelcik is doing whatever it takes to make this show a reality. (Globe Newswire)
THEY say one good turn deserves another – and a gas company has returned a favour to villagers who supported them during an emergency. (Somerset County Gazette)