Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it for any one else.”
- Source
- Our Mutual Friend
- Date
- 1865
Meaning of “No one is useless in this world who…”
Dickens gives usefulness a relational measure: easing another person’s burden can itself be meaningful contribution even without status or public achievement.
Where does it come from?
Our Mutual Friend, Book III, Chapter IX (“Somebody Becomes the Subject of a Prediction”), verified against Project Gutenberg #883 and the stable Wikisource chapter transcription. John Rokesmith (the Secretary) says “No one is useless in this world ... who lightens the burden of it for any one else” after Bella Wilfer calls herself useless. This row preserves the represented primary-text wording and is the same underlying passage as the older modernized catalog variant; it remains fictional dialogue rather than Dickens autobiography or modern psychological evidence.