At least I think it is Shakespeare quote.
Basically a quote that says no matter how much good you do, you will be remembered for the one misdeed. Like Bill Clinton and the stained Blue Dress.
I think the metaphor was a comparison to a ripples in a pond.
It’s not ripples in a pond but there’s the famous speech by Mark Antony in Julius Caesar:
“The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones,”
I’m beginning to suspect that it’s not Shakespeare. I searched his entire body of work and couldn’t find ripple or ripples. And the Online Etymology Dictionary doesn’t give an earlier date for ripple than the 1660s which would have been 40some years after he died. One would think if he used ripple, they, of all websites, would attest to it.
Can you think of anywhere else you might have seen it?
Inner Stickler:
Not entirely sure it is Shakepeare.
Pretty sure The metaphor is water based, maybe waves. The waves of scandal never dissipate while the waves of a good deeds are soon forgotten.
I heard it over on a talk show in the car and I thought it was pretty spot on to some modern circumstances.
“Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.” - Hamlet