Reason teaches us that what is good is good for something, and that what is good for nothing is not good at all.
An aphorism is true where it has fixed the impression of a genuine experience.
Where everything is bad it must be good to know the worst.
True penitence condemns to silence. What a man is ready to recall he would be willing to repeat.
Another occupation might have been better.
But when one has ceased to have them, too often one cannot.