“What do we live for, if it is not to make life
less difficult to each other?”

「若非為了使彼此的生活更好過，則人為何而活？」

  In English writer George Eliot’s novel Middlemarch, the main character Dorothea Brooke explains why she feels compelled to help an acquaintance in need. She asks rhetorically whether we are not on this earth for the purpose of providing aid to others. If we were all to adopt such a view, we may conclude that there would be less suffering in the world.

英國作家喬治．艾略特的小說《米德鎮的春天》中的女主角多蘿西亞．布魯克解釋為何她覺得非要幫助一位患難中的點頭之交不可。她自忖我們在世上的目的不就是為了向他人伸出援手嗎？如果我們都能接受這樣的觀點，想必世界上會少一些苦難。