Greatest delights deferred

Lucius Annarus Seneca, in Letter XII, writes of the benefits of age: "deditos vino potio extrema delectat, illa quae mergit, quae ebrietati summam manum imponit; quod in se iucundissimum omnis voluptas habet in finem sui"

"It is the final glass which pleases the inveterate drinker, the one that sets the crowning touch on his intoxication and sends him off to oblivion. Every pleasure defers till its last its greatest delights." (Robin Campbell's translation in the Penguin Classics edition)

Invariant under wisdom

Paul Halmos on the difficulty of teaching people to write: "The ability to communicate effectively, the power to be intelligible, is congenital, I believe, or, in any event, it is so early acquired that by the time someone reads my wisdom on the subject he is likely to be invariant under it. To understand a syllogism is not something you can learn; you are either born with the ability or you are not. In the same way, effective exposition is not a teachable art; some can do it and some cannot. There is no usable recipe for good writing."