"The question you must ask yourself is this: will the good you do the other man by helping him overcome his problem - whatever that may be - gout, let's say - will the help you do to the other man in overcoming his gout exceed the harm, exhaustion and general sense of distaste that you incur to yourself in helping him? I know it doesn't sound very noble, Harry, but then neither does damaging yourself for the sake of others, as you will then require fixing, and others will be damaged in the attempt, and so it goes on and on and on, and frankly everyone ends up a worse mess than they were to begin with." A pause while he considered his own world view, before adding, "Besides, gout? Are you really going to help someone get through gout?"
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, Claire North