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?
One word is too often profaned For me to profane it, One feeling too falsely disdained For thee to disdain it.
Think of what you are, you Christians. You are God's children; you are joint heirs with Christ. The 'many mansions' are for you; the palms and harps of the glorified are for you. You have a share in all that Christ has and is and shall be.
For the Divine to function through you, it is important to make every breath, every pulsation in the body, and your very existence an offering.
People aim for the stars, and they end up like goldfish in a bowl. I wonder if it wouldn't be simpler just to teach children right from the start that life is absurd.
And there are new kinds of nomads, not people who are at home everywhere, but who are at home nowhere. I was one of them
What kind of people do they [the Japanese] think we are?
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.