Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie

1837–1919 · English novelist & essayist, eldest daughter of W. M. Thackeray

Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie (1837–1919) was an English novelist, memoirist and essayist, the eldest daughter of Vanity Fair author William Makepeace Thackeray. In her 1885 novel Mrs. Dymond she framed the fishing metaphor for self-sufficiency that, decades later and much rewritten, hardened into the familiar “teach a man to fish” proverb now falsely pinned on ancient sages.

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

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