Montaigne in his Essays cites this line of Horace that I like but also don’t really understand. “Dare to be wise! Begin now. The man who puts off the day when he will live rightly is like the peasant who waits for the river to drain away. But it flows on, and will flow on for ever.” I don’t know much (or really anything at all) about the world of Horace, but I can think of no suitable explanation for why the peasant might wait for a river to drain away. Or is that the point? That there is no sensible reason for a peasant to do this random, illogical thing invented by Horace is the point of the comparison?