
“I know some who are constantly drunk on books as other men are drunk on whiskey.”
71
1940s–present, Minority Report : H.L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956)
“I know some who are constantly drunk on books as other men are drunk on whiskey.”
1910s, "Natural Law", 32 Harvard Law Review 40, 41 (1918)
[Morgan, Forrest, Shakespeare—the Man, published in the Prospective Review, July 1853, The works of Walter Bagehot, vol. 1, 1891, Hartford, Connecticut, Travelers Insurance Company, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101064786716;view=1up;seq=373, 265–266 of 255–302]
Shakespeare—the Man (1853)
“The worst thing about some men is that when they are not drunk they are sober.”
1930s, Wisehart interview (1930)
Context: Much reading after a certain age diverts the mind from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking, just as the man who spends too much time in the theaters is apt to be content with living vicariously instead of living his own life.