I've done the basic google search.  a couple pages suggest Claire
Booth Luce around 1980 but I have the feeling the quotation is much
older, perhaps a proverb.  A good answer would cite some standard
reference work.

According to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.

No good deed goes unpunished "... is a consciously ironic rewriting of
the older expression 'No _bad_ deed goes unpunished' and has been
attributed to Wilde, but remains unverified.  Joe Orton recorded it in
his diary for 13 June 1967: 'Very good line George [Greeves] came out
with at dinner: "No good deed ever goes unpunished."'  James Agate in
_Ego 3_ (for 25 January 1938) states: '[Isidore Leo] Pavia was in
great form today: "Every good deed brings its own punishment."'

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Request for Answer Clarification by mwgardner-ga on 02 Nov 2002 18:11 PST

nice work!  only a little problem: you start to quote from Brewer's
but that quote is never closed, so I'm not sure whether the entire
answer is from Brewer's or whether you are switching sources somewhere
in the middle.

Are the Joe Orton and James Agate references part of the  Brewer's
quote, or differently sourced?  Either way, a well- done answer.

---

Clarification of Answer by nellie_bly-ga on 02 Nov 2002 20:49 PST

ooops, sorry about that.  There were so many quotes within quotes I
lost the final " .

It's all from Brewster.

Here's one other citation that I came upon later:
"No good deed goes unpunished is Rule #285 in the Ferengi Rules of
Acquisition: Unabridged and Fully Annotated. With all 47 Commentaries,
all 900 Major and Minor Judgments, all 10,000 Considered Opinions
http://www.stinsv.com/DSn/roa.htm
Rule #1, by the way, is "Once you have their money, you never give it
back."

The Ferengi are a humanoid species resident in the alpha quadrant of
the galaxy. First contacted by the Federation in 2364, the Ferengi
where found to follow the common humanoid pattern - evidence that they
share a common ancestry with the species which seeded many planets
across the galaxy several billion years ago. The Ferengi tend to be
approximately 1.65 m tall, and their most distinctive feature is a set
of very pronounced ears. These are among the most sensitive of any
known species, as well as being one of the major Ferengi erogenous
zones.
http://www.bravofleet.com/bravofleet/academy/races/ferengi.html

Search strategy: "no good deed goes unpunished"  +Ferengi

Live long and prosper.

Nellie Bly

well documented answer; timely clarification

Here is another source, although I don't know how reliable it is.

No good deed goes unpunished. - Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936)
http://www.geocities.com/emelia84/quotes1.htm

In Star Trek:

"No good deed goes unpunished." (Geordi to Romulan, "The Enemy" )
http://astro.bu.edu/~avondale/StarTrek/QuotesFromEpisodes/STQuotes.html

--Bobbie7-ga