1. Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.
2. Keep cool: it will all be one a hundred years hence.
3. Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts.
4. We boil at different degrees.
- Emerson’s point is that everyone has their own, individual breaking point. He wants us to realize when we’re going overboard or pushing ourselves too hard, or when we’re pushing someone else too hard. You do not want to push someone over their edge, because you never know what they are capable of doing. Everyone is different, and so is the way they get aggravated and angry. Beware of the people you know who are short tempered.
5. To be great is to be misunderstood.
6. There are always two parties; the establishment and the movement.
7. When Nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.
8. In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed.
- Emerson’s point is that when you are in danger or an argument, how you choose to handle the situation is the key. You are skating over thin ice, which is capable of collapsing. You got yourself into that mess, and you must be calm, cool, and composed in order to save yourself. If you speed through the ice, it will for sure break and you will sink into the icy cold water below it. You will suffer the consequence of your careless actions. If you take your time (slow and steady wins the race) going over the ice, you will ultimately be safer and avoid dire consequences.
9. What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not been discovered.
10. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesman and philosophers and divines.
11. What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.
12. All sensible people are selfish, and nature is tugging at every contract to make the terms of it fair.
13. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
- Emerson’s point is that life is full of chances and experiments and the more you take a chance or test something out, the more you learn. Life is a learning experience. If you never take a risk or chance your life will never be as beneficial as who someone who does. When you experiment with life, like the way you experiment in the science lab, there is room for error as well as success. Failure is okay, it teaches you a lesson. Success is great, and the more you experiment and have successes, the better your life will be. Remember that there is always a possibility of error, and it is okay. We live, and we learn.
14. The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.
15. The god of the cannibals will be a cannibal, of the crusaders a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant.
