As there is a use in medicine for poisons, so the world cannot move without rogues.
Interpretation
Rogues, like poisons in medicine, have a necessary role in society.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that just as certain poisons are used in medicine for healing purposes, the presence of rogues or unscrupulous individuals is essential for the functioning and progression of the world. It implies that challenges and unscrupulous behavior, while often viewed negatively, can contribute to growth, innovation, and the balance of life.
In practice
During a discussion on morality in business, one might quote this to highlight the necessary evils in achieving progress.
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?
Within the extent of your knowledge, you are right.
Too much openness and you accept every notion, idea, and hypothesis-which is tantamount to knowing nothing. Too much skepticism-especially rejection of new ideas before they are adequately tested-and you're not only unpleasantly grumpy, but also closed to the advance of science. A judicious mix is what we need.
No tree becomes rooted and sturdy unless many a wind assails it. For by its very tossing it tightens its grip and plants its roots more securely; the fragile trees are those that have grown in a sunny valley.
They that know no evil will suspect none.
A fact is like a sack - it won't stand up if it's empty. To make it stand up, first you have to put in it all the reasons and feelings that caused it in the first place.
Although a man may have no jurisdiction over the fact of his existence, he can hold supreme command over the meaning of existence for him.
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