|
Reader question: Please explain this sentence: A little kindness goes a long way. My comments: Obviously, that means a little kindness helps a lot. But “go a long way”? If a person goes a long way in the literal sense, then this person travels far and wide, coving a lot of ground. By extension, the idiomatic meaning of someone “going a long way” means he’s to be successful, successful in a long-term way, successful in the long run. Obviously, if someone manages to go a long way, it means he’s at the very least enduring and not failing at the first hurdles, so to speak and not dropping by the wayside before long. In our example, you may liken “kindness” to a person that’s able to go a long way and cover a lot of distance. That has to mean that the quality of being kind is going be enduring and successful, too, in that its effect is going to be long lasting and far reaching. We’ve all heard or read stories about people who, years after the event, go out of their way to repay some benefactor who did them a good deed. For example, a beggar gets fed a bowl of soup by an old lady. Many years later, this beggar becomes successful and makes a lot of money. He comes back to the old lady to say thank-you, bearing great tokens of gifts of one kind or another. Many years, decades may have gone by, but the erstwhile beggar never forgets the old lady because that bowl of soup, plus a consoling word or two is what gave him the strength to live to fight for another day. | 
