“To eat the lotus of the Nile
And drink the poppies of Cathay.”
The Tent on the Beach, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
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John Greenleaf Whittier47
American Quaker poet and advocate of the abolition of slave… 1807–1892Related quotes
“She was like a crinkled poppy; with the desire to drink dry dust.”
Virginia Woolf book The Waves
Source: The Waves
Book I, fable 25, line 3.
Fables
“Let Ariel learn
a blessing for Caliban
and Caliban drink dew from the lotus
open upon the waters.”
Denise Levertov (1923–1997) Poet
Conversation in Moscow, The Freeing of the Dust
“Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.”
Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher
Plutarch Moralia, How the Young Man Should Study Poetry
Variant translation: Base men live to eat and drink, and good men eat and drink to live.
Plutarch
Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher
How a Young Man ought to hear Poems, 4
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism
Source: 1840s, Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions (1845), p. 83