Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
The Secretary asserts that anyone who lightens the burdens of others is useful in the world.
In plain terms
Everyone who helps others is useful to the world.
What can you take from it?
Helping others gives life value and purpose.

Where it applies

  • community service
  • personal reflection

Putting it to work

  • help others
  • find purpose in service

Questions to consider

  • What makes a person useful?
  • How do we lighten others' burdens?

Another view

Some useful acts may go unnoticed or unrewarded.

More from Charles Dickens

  1. We must scrunch or be scrunched.

    Permalink to quote #138
  2. A day wasted on others is not wasted on one's self.

    Permalink to quote #140
  3. That's the state to live and die in!...R-r-rich!

    Permalink to quote #137

Related quotes

  1. Just as there are no little people or unimportant lives, there is no insignificant work.

    Yelena BonnerYelena Bonner quote #1
  2. Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.

    Horace MannHorace Mann quote #1
  3. Of all the Griefs that harrass the Distrest, Sure the most bitter is a scornful Jest

    Samuel JohnsonSamuel Johnson quote #1