To promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.

You can’t depend on your judgment when your imagination is out of focus.

My Take – If you can’t imagine what ‘right’ ought to look like, you’re going to have a heck of a hard time knowing it when you see it.

In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.

My Take – It’s become a proforma tactic of any politician on the national stage to be shown in camouflage clothing holding a shooting iron and sipping a cup of Folgers on the tailgate of a pickup.  Doesn’t matter if he’s the scion of a rich family, or if he married into money not once but twice.  They’ve got to get those shots of them supporting our gun rights in order to convince us rubes that they’re looking out for us.  I have my problems with Rick Perry and Sarah Palin, but they at least could tell which end the bullets come out of before they decided to run for office.

Now that the momentum is behind those of us who believe in gun rights, it’s easy for politicians of both the bluest liberal and metrocon conservative stripes to say they were for guns before they were against them.  I have a lot more respect for people who had the guts to stand up in 1994 and rail against the Brady Bill, or who complained about the gun laws in Massachusetts, DC, Chicago, New York, and California before it was what the cool kids were doing.

H’aint we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain’t that a big enough majority in any town?

Laws are sand, customs are rock. Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped, but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment.

My Take – Your average person probably can’t recite the laws of their society too well, but they for sure can tell you just what the customs and taboos of the tribe are.  People will forgive breaking the law if it isn’t too bad or you pay enough blood money.  Break customs and either learn to run from the mob really fast or be prepared to defend your life against the whole tribe.  To sum up:  learn the customs of the tribe before you worry about what their laws are.   The sheriff might give you crap for jaywalking, but he might just throw your butt in jail over spitting on the sidewalk.

Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations and resentments flit away and a sunny spirit takes their place.

My Take – I know that I’m on a downward slide in my attitude and outlook when I start to listen to more comedy than music on the iPod.  Laughter is the best catharsis I have, and when I’m feeling especially crummy, I want to laugh.  It could be a Bill Cosby routine I listened to in diapers, if it makes me laugh, I want to hear it.

And remember folks, if you aren’t laughing, you ought to be crying.

It [the press] has scoffed at religion till it has made scoffing popular. It has defended official criminals, on party pretexts, until it has created a United States Senate whose members are incapable of determining what crime against law and the dignity of their own body is—they are so morally blind—and it has made light of dishonesty till we have as a result a Congress which contracts to work for a certain sum and then deliberately steals additional wages out of the public pocket and is pained and surprised that anybody should worry about a little thing like that.

My Take – That was written a century ago.  The press on either side of the political spectrum isn’t any more ethical than it was then.  Our elected officials don’t seem to be any more honest or driven to work for the public good than those of Twain’s time.  Something tells me that if I were to look for public commentary about the Senate of Republican Rome, then I’d find the same kinds of complaints.  Goes to show that the vast majority of people who seek office are doing it for the wrong reasons. Question – How do you say “Vote them out, vote them all out” in Latin?

Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.

My Take – Yeah, it’s been said before, and it will continue to be repeated.  But it’s one of my favorites.

The funniest things are the forbidden.

A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.