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?
I would not think that philosophy and reason themselves will be man's guide in the foreseeable future; however, they will remain the most beautiful sanctuary they have always been for the select few.
Women must write through their bodies, they must invent the impregnable language that will wreck partitions, classes, and rhetorics, regulations and codes, they must submerge, cut through, get beyond the ultimate reverse-discourse, including the one that laughs at the very idea of pronouncing the word "silence"...In one another we will never be lacking.
In quitting this strange world he has once again preceded me by a little. That doesn't mean anything. For those of us who believe in physics, this separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however tenacious.
The potential beauty of human life is constantly made ugly by man's ever-recurring song of retaliation.
When you are annoyed at someone's mistake, immediately look at yourself and reflect how you also fail; for example, in thinking that good equals money, or pleasure, or a bit of fame. By being mindful of this you'll quickly forget your anger, especially if you realize that the person was under stress, and could do little else. And, if you can, find a way to alleviate that stress.
God's Kingdom is a place of abundance where every generous act overflows its original bounds and becomes part of the unbounded grace of God at work in the world.
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