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?
Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that.
Man associates ideas not according to logic or verifiable exactitude, but according to his pleasure and interests. It is for this reason that most truths are nothing but prejudices.
In spite of the fact that the law of revenge solves no social problems, men continue to follow its disastrous leading. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path.
As it turns out, we don't "all" have to pay our debts. Only some of us do.
Do not shorten the morning by getting up late; look upon it as the quintessence of life, as to a certain extent sacred.
If you haven't got any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.