One can't indefinitely do for somebody what he is reluctant to do for himself.
Interpretation
You cannot help someone who does not want to help themselves.
This quote by Christopher Hitchens emphasizes the limits of altruism and the importance of personal responsibility. It suggests that while one can offer support and assistance to others, true change or improvement requires the individual to take initiative and be willing to work on their own challenges. Without this willingness, efforts to help are often futile and may lead to frustration.
In practice
When discussing the importance of personal responsibility in a motivational speech.
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 — because it’s had to give so much more ground and because we know so much more. But you’ve 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.
Suffering is unbearable if you aren’t certain that God is for you and with you.
A wise doctor does not mutter incantations over a sore that needs the knife.
When any anxiety or gloom of the mind takes hold of you, make it a rule not to publish it by complaining; but exert yourselves to hide it, and by endeavoring to hide it you drive it away.
Simple people... are very quick to see the live facts which are going on about them.
Action and contemplation are very close companions; they live together in one house on equal terms. Martha and Mary are sisters.
I, poor creature, worn out with scribbling for my bread and my liberty, low in spirits and weak in health, must leave others to wear the laurels which I have sown, others to eat the bread which I have earned. A common case.
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