How long had he been doing what was necessary instead of what was right? In a fair world they would be one and the same.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the moral conflict between necessity and morality, suggesting both should ideally align in a just world.
This quote by Robert Jordan explores the tension between actions taken for necessity and those taken for moral correctness. It highlights the frustration of living in a reality where individuals often have to choose between doing what is necessary for survival and what they believe is ethically right, suggesting that true fairness would see these two align seamlessly.
In practice
In a debate about ethical business practices, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of aligning actions with moral values.
Fantasy is an area where it is possible to talk about right and wrong, good and evil, with a straight face. In mainstream fiction and even in a good deal of mystery, these things are presented as simply two sides of the same coin. Never really more than a matter of where you happen to be standing.
The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.
Til shade is gone, til water is gone Into the shadow with teeth bared Screaming defiance with the last breath To spit in Sightblinder’s eye on the Last Day.
He came like the wind, like the wind touched everything, and like the wind was gone. -from The Dragon Reborn. By Loial, son of Arent son of Halan, the Fourth Age.
The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived.
Duty is heavier than a mountain, Dai Shan.' That time, Lan did flinch. How long had it been since someone had been able to do that to him with mere words? He remembered teaching that same concept to a youth out of the Two Rivers. A sheepherder, innocent of the world, fearful of the fate laid out before him by the Pattern.
I knew what it was to be uncomfortable in a movie theater watching unfolding on the screen images of myself - not me, but black people - that were uncomfortable.
No one gets angry at a mathematician or a physicist whom he or she doesn't understand, or at someone who speaks a foreign language, but rather at someone who tampers with your own language.
The constitutions of most of our States assert, that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves, in all cases to which they think themselves competent, or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of the press.
When a person’s tongue is extensively wrong, it is absurd, no less than unscriptural, to say that their heart is right.
The true test of civilization is not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops - no, but the kind of man the country turns out.
How characteristic of your perverse heart that longs only for what happens to be out of reach.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.