“Do we think that choirboys take great pleasure in music? Not so; satiety makes it boring to them. Feasts, dances, masquerades, tourneys, delight those who do not see them often and who have looked forward to seeing them; but to anyone who makes them an ordinary pastime, the taste of them becomes insipid and unpleasant. Nor do ladies titillate the man who enjoys his fill of them. He who does not give himself leisure to be thirsty cannot take pleasure in drinking. The farces of the mountebanks delight us, but to the players they are a chore. … There is nothing so hampering, so cloying, as abundance.”

I.42 “Of the inequality that is between us” (p. 234)

[On getting used to things. Custom vs novelty. Neil Peart on playing “Tom Sawyer.”]