give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime

He certainly doesn't practice his precepts, but I suppose the Patron meant that if you give a man a fish he is hungry again in an hour. If you teach him to catch a fish you do him a good turn. But these very elementary principles are apt to clash with the leisure of the cultivated classes.

For many years teachers in the Marshall Islands have sought to implement the wise insight of Marcus Aurelius: "Give a man a fish and you have fed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you have fed him for ever." Some of our teachers have even convinced themselves that this is Marshallese folk wisdom! But at least they recognize that the most effective help is self-help.

Western institutions are fundamentally based on Greco-Roman institutions. If you understand the classics, you understand the framework of every western nation and culture... As the American saying goes, "If you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day, but if you teach a man how to fish, he will eat for life."