1) "Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles."
-- Emerson is giving the idea of individuality, it is only us ourselves that can bring peace and harmony in this life. All the answers are within ourselves.
2) "In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this."
-- When we read someone else's work, we can pick out things and at one point in our thought we found it as a stupid thought. But now, we consider that thought important since it was important to someone else's eyes.
3) "We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents."
-- Be proud of yourself and what you have. We should take care of ourselves and shouldn't be afraid to speak out our mind.
4) "Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not to say "I think.' I am,' but quotes some saint or sage.
-- The self is truthful, it does not idle behind your words and actions in the past, it is unapologetic of being and for it is all the better.
5) "Men have looked away from themselves and at things so long that they come to esteem the religious, learned and civil institutions as guards of property, and they deprecate assaults on these, because they feel them to be assaults on property. They measure their esteem of each other by what each has, and no by what each is."
-- Emerson argues that because society is built in such a way where individuals have a hard time trusting themselves, it prevents us from seeing ourselves and others. Emerson also argued that society teaches and instills within us a natural distrust of our own thoughts and ideas.
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