Benjamin Franklin understood, in his time, the importance of character. He wrote this adage to preserve his idea that one negative person could cause the others of the group to become adverse also. One example of this phrase, in the present, is a company or business. This example shows a more equal explanation of this saying where the companions are of equivalent status. An employee of a company can act lackadaisical in the workplace around others. That negative attitude can spread throughout other employees promoting inattentiveness and laziness. When one person is able to do less effort others see that as an opportunity to do little work also. Another example of this aphorism occurred during the time of the Nazis by Hitler’s soldiers focusing
