There is a quote that is both appropriate for the holiday season and amazingly relevant for the great aid debate. It is by John Steinbeck, from The Log from the Sea of Cortez:
Perhaps the most overrated virtue on our list of shoddy virtues is that of giving. Giving builds up the ego of the giver, makes him superior and higher and larger than the receiver……. it is so easy to give, so exquisitely rewarding. Receiving, on the other hand, if it be well done, requires a fine balance of self-knowledge and kindness. It requires humility and tact and great understanding of relationships. In receiving you cannot appear, even to yourself, better or stronger or wiser than the giver, although you must be wiser to do it well.I first ran across it in Robert Klitgaard's Tropical Gangsters. Keep it in mind when you do your holiday shopping... and when you're designing you next aid project.