Iris

“Trying to help is at best useless and at worst damaging; but to stop trying to help is to give up on humanity. Humanitarians are condescending hypocrites, but they are the best of us.”
― Larissa MacFarquhar, Strangers Drowning: Grappling with Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Overpowering Urge to Help

“(If you are reading this story out loud, force a listener to reveal a devastating secret, then open the nearest window to the street and scream it as loudly as you are able.)”
― Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties

“Paul Goodman famously wrote, “Suppose you had the revolution you are talking and dreaming about. Suppose your side had won, and you had the kind of society that you wanted. How would you live, you personally, in that society? Start living that way now!”
― Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities

“Giving without expectation of return was not thought to be a higher, more selfless act; quite the contrary, it was aggressive, it set the giver up as superior to the recipient, causing the recipient to lose face; it imposed a burden of gratitude without permitting the relief of reciprocation. Because a gift contained in itself something of the essence of the giver, a gift gave him power over the beneficiary. In some societies a gift retained, rather than passed along, could cause serious harm to the recipient—even death. In some ancient languages, the word “gift” had a second meaning: poison.”
― Larissa MacFarquhar, Strangers Drowning: Grappling with Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Overpowering Urge to Help