I haven’t a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming petty vices whatsoever.

A baby is an inestimable blessing and bother.

My Take – Babies are cute and sweet so that you forgive them for all of the cost and trouble.  

There are people who strictly deprive themselves of each and every eatable, drinkable and smokable which has in any way acquired a shady reputation. They pay this price for health. And health is all they get for it. How strange it is. It is like paying out your whole fortune for a cow that has gone dry.

My Take – Life’s too short.  Yeah, you can have too much of a good thing, but if you’re not enjoying life, what’s the purpose of extending it?  Life should be full of good coffee, wine, beer, food, and whatever else it is that gives you that warm feeling.  The marathon runners who look malnourished and feel ill when they eat a couple of M&M’s don’t exactly look like they’re going to enjoy those extra months they’re tacking onto the end of their life.

The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.

My Take: Not sure I agree with this one.  I tend to see animals as morally neutral, neither good nor evil.  A cow that chews its cud peacefully is not good, it just is.  A wolf that hunts down its prey and rends it limb from limb is not evil, it just is.  A human being can be either evil or good, or both. It’s all due to choice, which an animal does not have.

The citizen who thinks he sees that the commonwealth’s political clothes are worn out, and yet holds his peace and does not agitate for a new suit, is disloyal, he is a traitor. That he may be the only one who thinks he sees this decay, does not excuse him: it is his duty to agitate anyway, and it is the duty of others to vote him down if they do not see the matter as he does.

My Take – Pointing out that the emperor has no clothes is the whole point of the freedom of speech.  The ability to cuss on a record, complain to the editor that your neighbors are loud at 3 AM, or to read whatever books you want are bonuses.  If you don’t use the right to try to convince others that the government needs a thorough sweeping every so often, especially when you know it does, you’re part of the problem.

When the doctrine of allegiance to party can utterly up-end a man’s moral constitution and make a temporary fool of him besides, what excuse are you going to offer for preaching it, teaching it, extending it, perpetuating it? Shall you say, the best good of the country demands allegiance to party? Shall you also say it demands that a man kick his truth and his conscience into the gutter, and become a mouthing lunatic, besides?

Familiarity breeds contempt — and children.

…”Remember this, take this to heart, live by it, die for it if necessary: that our patriotism is medieval, outworn, obsolete; that the modern patriotism, the true patriotism, the only rational patriotism, is loyalty to the Nation ALL the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.”

My Take – When I took the oath of enlistment, I didn’t pledge faith and allegiance to my state, the president, or a party.  I pledged to protect and defend the Constitution, the written embodiment of the ideals our country is based upon.  That is all that was expected of me, and that is what I delivered.  I was released from active service, but not my oath.  I may prefer one part of the country to another, hold membership in a political party, and prefer one politician over another, but my loyalties are always to the Constitution and the nation that lives by it.

We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking. And out of it we get an aggregation which we consider a boon. Its name is public opinion. It is held in reverence. Some think it the voice of God.

My Take – “I feel your pain” is not a good reason to cause pain in other members of society.  Believing that the climate is getting hotter, colder, wetter, drier, or whatever is no reason to wreck the economy and criminalize breathing.  Hope is not a plan, no matter how hard you clap your hands and believe.  The three things necessary to make good decisions and plans are facts, facts, and facts.  Either make rational decisions or let someone else take the tiller.

A crowded police docket is the surest of all signs that trade is brisk and money plenty.

My Take – Maybe it’s not the trade the government wants to happen, but trade nonetheless.