"With each new agreement... the possibility of friendship enlarges" (58, LiTA)

I have always seen this with people. No one wants to be around people who are different form themselves. It scares them and makes them feel threatened. I do not know why we have developed this habit of surrounding yourself with like-minded people, and I am not sure if it is a good or a bad thing that we have it. Maybe it helped with cooperation when we were hunting mammoths.

"We angrily call people 'pigs,' 'rats,' 'wolves,' 'skunks,' or lovingly call them 'honey,' 'sugar,' 'duck,' and 'sweetie pie.'" (45, LiTA) 

Calling people names relies on people thinking that those names stand for something unsavory. The power that some words have to make you feel is part of the reason that love poems and vulgarities can exist. I believe that affective connotation is often more important than the informative connotation.

"It would be startling indeed if the word "justice," for example, were to have the same meaning to each of the nine justices of the United States Supreme Court..." (40, LiTA) 

This reminds us to keep in mind that context is not only what is around us and what has been said recently, but how the other person will interpret what you say. Context covers an enormous amount things, and it is best to remember that no one can see all of the context that will affect what they say or write or read.

"This process of selecting details that are favorable or unfavorable to the subject being described may be termed slanting." (30, LiTA) 

This technique is an interesting one. The idea that word choice can affect your impression of someone completely is a testament to the power of affective connotation. This is something to observe in yourself and others; try to limit it in yourself, and see through it in others.

If verbally absorbed information is to a map, as personally absorbed information is to a territory, then the world relies on accurate maps. Manipulating these maps is a tool that many people use consciously, unfortunately. Every time you hear false information that is designed to change your opinions, someone is trying to feed you an inaccurate map. 

"...symbols are independent of what is symbolized." (17 LiTA) 

This is an important and often forgotten tenet of communication. Words mean what we want them to mean and no more. The adherence to concrete meanings, while fostering uniformity, would stagnate culture if implemented and enforced. This would not be for the better.

"Language, that is to say makes progress possible." (7, LiTA)
This is true. If language allows us to learn from the past, then we have a foundation upon which to build our society. Without this foundation, we would need to lay a new one every time we try to learn something, spending our lives learning what has already been learned and never progressing any farther. 

"People who think of themselves as tough-minded and realistic tend to take it for granted that human nature is selfish and that life is a struggle in which only the fittest may survive" (4)
I agree with the author that people often use animal analogies to condone ruthless and selfish behavior. I also agree that this is fallacious; human beings are animals, and we are by far the most successful species on the planet as of now. What makes us human, not what makes tigers tigers, is what we should embrace in our everyday lives for the common good.