vengándose no se consigue nada

Question

Is this really like "two wrongs don't make a right?" (Y soy nuevo necessito las puntas por favor.)

Answer 1

Maybe round about; "avenging yourself (seeking revenge) doesn't gain you anything" would be more literal.

¡Bienvenido al foro!

Welcome to the forum!

Answer 2

Is this really like "two wrongs don't make a right?

That is a myth that grammars successfully introduced. Many languages, including English sometimes, use two negatives without making it a positive. Languages are not maths: absolute logic does not work with them.

But anyway, the word "nada" originally meant "(some)thing" (or anything), not "nothing", so sentences like "No sé nada" actually meant literally "I don't know anything". After being used so often in this kind of negative sentences, it eventually was identified with a negative meaning, which is the one we use now, even though the "no" is still there. However, if "nada" appears before the verb, "no" cannot be used in the same sentence (or it becomes "positive"!), so we say "Nada sé" (literally, "Nothing I know")

The same behaviour can be observed with "nadie", "nunca" and a few other verbs, as well as other negative words other than "no", such as "jamás".

P.S. For those interested, the word comes from Latin "res nata" (thing + born)

Answer 3

I suppose it could be interpreted that way but the usual sense is that committing a wrong (even in retaliation for a wrong) does not cancel out the "wrongness". "vengándose no se consigue nada" ("taking vengeance accomplishes nothing", on the other hand, does not seek to justify the "vengeance" but, rather, to suggest that it accomplishes nothing/provides no benefits/satisfaction).