Journal #8

Journal 8 - Emerson’s Aphorisms

Write a one paragraph personal response based on three of the following aphorisms. Your responses should address the point Emerson is making as well as your thoughts/feelings about what he is saying.

In aphorism number 5 Emerson is saying that in order to be great or something special you must be different and unique. People do not always understand others who are different or stand out, but those unique people end up doing great things that “normal” people would not. This inspires me to be who I really am and not change into a different person just because other people want me to. I should always be myself no matter what others think of me because one day I might aspire to greater things than them.

In aphorism 9 he is saying that what you see on the outside may not be hat is on the inside. People judge by what they see on first look before judging on what is on the inside. Just because the “weed” or person may look like nothing on the outside you may have thing still to discover on the inside. This makes me think about myself and how I think of other people. It makes me want to try harder to look past the outside and not judge so much.

In aphorism 13 Emerson is saying that we must take chances. Life is about living and doing anything and everything you can. Without these “experiments” in life, it would not be much of a fulfilled life. This makes me feel like I should go for anything I want to do and not be scared of failure. Every experience or chance I get to do something I should take it. You must always take chances.

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.
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.
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.
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.