Emerson/ Thoreau
...e. It is very easy to follow in the footsteps of others. Take walking in knee high snow, for example. When you are walking in pre existing tracks it makes it easy. Just like following what other people say. When someone says something, it is easier to just agree than to contradict what they said. This is the reason why “It is easier to live after the world’s opinion, and it is easy in solitude to live in our own.” But, “The great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude,” marks greatness because this person is either the one who is making the tracks in the snow or this is the person that decides to make his own track in the snow, not follow with the others. In making statements such as these, Thoreau, in my opinion, was not suggesting that he had revealed a desire to live in rebellion to any government but rather a willingness to support the laws so long as they did not violate any moral principles. He also felt that, in order to be a better person, it might be necessary to experience a little injustice for the sake of justice. This, I feel, is what every man should do in order to make society better as a whole. In this s...