Emerson's view expresses the Romanticism of the American Transcendentalist movement.
    Morally - Emerson's position here expresses the profound dignity and vlaue of the individual.
    Epistemologically - Emerson's position is that feeling and intuition are more important than reason and empirical observation.

Emerson's position in general was that it is possible to renew the world with a new idealist philosophy that went beyond the materialism of science and beyond the boundaries of traditional religion.

The over-soul, eternal one, or God is the ultimate reality and Nature is the projection of that reality.  The order of nature is involable by us.  Nature is the way to the divine mind.

God incarnates itself in each of us in a particular way.  Each man has his own vocation - insist on yourself.  Do not imitate.  "Whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist."  Be oneself.  Rely on oneself.  Don't look for foolish consistency - don't be afraid to think one thing today and another one tomorrow.  Today and tomorrow are different from each other.  Logical rigor, consistency:  These things are "the hobgoblin of little minds."

Individual conscience is the ultimate authority.  Originality is essential.  Remember that if you do not speak your mind and live your own way, if you are afraid that you will be laughed at and ridiculed, you will probably find it to be the case that what you thought yesterday is said today by someone else, and you will be forced to take your own words as those of another and will notice that another man says "with masterly good sense" what you already thought but were too timid to put into words and into action.

Action is higher than contemplation.  You have to DO to BE.  For Emerson we are "part or particle of God."  There is the divine in all of us and in everything.  We ought to find in ourselves the strength and inspiration to be our own person, to live our own lives and not be held to some standard by others.  We should pave the way to our own lives, our own standards, and our own good.  The development of the authentic human being, the one who is not afraid to LIVE, the one who is not afraid to THINK FOR HIMSELF, is the ideal, is the godly, is in tune with nature, and is at one with the world.

The genius of the free thinker is to "trust thyself."

Conformity is generally considered to be virtue.  This, for Emerson, is wrong.  Self-reliance is averse to conformity.

For Emerson, there is nothing sacred but your own mind.  Explore goodness - do not be hindered by it.

Remember that to be great is to be misunderstood.

Do not revere the past.  It is gone.  Reverence for the past creates conspirators against the sanity and authority of the soul.

Themes in Emerson and American Philosophy generally:

        individualism - self-trust, confidence in one's own mind, thought, reason, experience.  "JUST DO IT"?
        egalitarianism/elitism - everyone is capable of improvement, but there are those who develop a Divine Element
        optimism - we are capable of improvement of the human condition.