Philanthropic and religious bodies do not commonly make their executive officers out of saints.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that executive leaders in philanthropic and religious organizations are not typically virtuous individuals.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote implies a critique of the leadership within philanthropic and religious institutions, indicating that such organizations tend to prioritize practical, often self-interested individuals for leadership roles, rather than those who are purely altruistic or morally upright. This perspective raises important questions about the nature of leadership and motivation within organizations that are meant to serve the greater good, suggesting a complex relationship between human nature and institutional goals.
In practice
During a nonprofit conference, one might quote Emerson to highlight the challenges in finding truly altruistic leaders.
It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.
Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.
The world belongs to the energetic.
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
If we have never been amazed by the very fact that we exist, we are squandering the greatest fact of all.
Hardly anyone in the world is an American
Civil war.... What did the words mean? Was there any such thing as "foreign war"? Was not all warfare between men warfare between brothers?
God's love does not distinguish between the infant in the mother's womb or the child or the youth or the adult or the older person. In each one God sees His image and likeness. Human life is a manifestation of God and His glory.
Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich.
Anything can become excusable when seen from the standpoint of the result
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