Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of maintaining dignity over merely showing compassion.
Christopher Hitchens advocates for the idea that individuals should prioritize dignity for themselves and others rather than relying solely on compassion. He warns against the societal tendency to equate compassion with virtue, suggesting that true respect and self-worth might sometimes be perceived as arrogance or selfishness in a world that often values emotional responses over the inherent dignity of individuals.
In practice
In a motivational seminar about self-respect.
In a public dialogue with Salman in London he [Edward Said] had once described the Palestinian plight as one where his people, expelled and dispossessed by Jewish victors, were in the unique historical position of being 'the victims of the victims': there was something quasi-Christian, I thought, in the apparent humility of that statement.
What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Never ask while you are doing it if what you are doing is fun. Don't introduce even your most reliably witty acquaintance as someone who will set the table on a roar.
[E]xceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.
The worst days are when you feel foggy in the head - chemo-brain they call it. It's awful because you feel boring. As well as bored. And stupid. And resigned.
Let me tell you something: for hundreds of thousands of years, this kind of discussion would have been impossible to have, or those like us would have been having it at the risk of our lives. Religion now comes to us in this smiley-face, ingratiating way β because itβs had to give so much more ground and because we know so much more. But youβve got no right to forget the way it behaved when it was strong, and when it really did believe that it had God on its side.
The majority of my patients consisted not of believers but of those who had lost their faith.
If the traveller can find A virtuous and wise companion Let him go with him joyfully And overcome the dangers of the way. But if you cannot find Friend or master to go with you, Travel on alone.
Conflicts create the fire of affects and emotions; and like every fire it has two aspects: that of burning and that of giving light.
No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly.
Neutrality is for referees in a football game. You have to take a stand. The really, really good journalists always take a stand with those who have no power, with those who have no rights, and with those who have no voice.
So many indigenous people have said to me that the fundamental difference between Western and indigenous ways of being is that even the most open-minded westerners generally view listening to the natural world as a metaphor, as opposed to the way the world really is. Trees and rocks and rivers really do have things to say to us.
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