Analyze this quote, part 2.

This is difficult to analyze on its own without the help of the first stanza, which is:

That odd, fantastic ass Rosseau
Declared himself unique
How men persist in doing so
Puzzles me more than Greek.

This has the quality and pace of a limerick and is mocking. And even though the tempo is kept up in the final stanza (which JPM offers), Bradford has now gone swiftly to the heart and soul of Rosseau and chooses to comment on his philisophical vision. This, then, is probably a playful attack on Rosseau's notion of the 'noble savage'. and is throwing his own ideas back at him in an effort to pychoanalyze him.

Well, it's just a thought.

I think what this quote is saying is that the sins that whores and thieves are guilty of are the same sins that the writer is tempted by everyday. Yet, the writer's actual beliefs (which I would assume are morally sound--not like those of the whore and theif) are what he lives by. I think he is saying that although he is also tempted by the exact evils that they give in to, he is strong enough to fight the urge to indulge in them.