Quotes about drinking
page 12

John Updike photo

“There had been a lot of death in the newspapers lately. […] and then before Christmas that Pan Am Flight 103 ripping open like a rotten melon five miles above Scotland and dropping all these bodies and flaming wreckage all over the golf course and the streets of this little town like Glockamorra, what was its real name, Lockerbie. Imagine sitting there in your seat being lulled by the hum of the big Rolls-Royce engines and the stewardesses bringing the clinking drinks caddy and the feeling of having caught the plane and nothing to do now but relax and then with a roar and a giant ripping noise and scattered screams this whole cozy world dropping away and nothing under you but black space and your chest squeezed by the terrible unbreathable cold, that cold you can scarcely believe is there but that you sometimes actually feel still packed into the suitcases, stored in the unpressurised hold, when you unpack your clothes, the dirty underwear and beach towels with the merciless chill of death from outer space still in them. […] Those bodies with hearts pumping tumbling down in the dark. How much did they know as they fell, through air dense like tepid water, tepid gray like this terminal where people blow through like dust in an air duct, to the airline we're all just numbers on the computer, one more or less, who cares? A blip on the screen, then no blip on the screen. Those bodies tumbling down like wet melon seeds.”

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

Quentin Crisp photo
Thomas Morton (playwright) photo

“I eat well, and I drink well, and I sleep well—but that's all.”

Thomas Morton (playwright) (1764–1838) English playwright

A Roland for an Oliver (1819), Act I, scene i http://books.google.com/books?id=nWtbAAAAQAAJ&q=%22I+eat+well+and+I+drink+well+and+I+sleep+well+but+that's+all%22&pg=PA16#v=onepage.

Jack Osbourne photo
Warren Zevon photo
Joshua Jackson photo
Neal Stephenson photo
James K. Morrow photo
Robert Benchley photo

“Drinking makes such fools of people, and people are such fools to begin with, that it's compounding a felony.”

Robert Benchley (1889–1945) American comedian

Quoted in The New Speaker's Treasury of Wit and Wisdom‎ (1958) by Herbert Victor Prochnow, p. 129

Phil Brooks photo

“Punk: Hey, Jeff. Jeff, aren't you nervous sitting way up there so… high? Especially in the condition you're in, and by "condition", I mean that you're probably drunk right now, just like all these people here tonight. (Crowd boos) Yeah, that's something to be proud of, I mean, you'd have to be under the influence to stomach this "live in the moment" crap that you spew. What's living in the moment gotten you, Jeff? I know it got you a night in a hospital, and for what? The adulation of these people? One brief moment of attention? (Crowd chants "Hardy") You know, I don't know what's more pathetic—all these people hanging on your every word, waiting for the next pitiful example for you to set that they can lead, or you and your egotistical addiction to their cheers and support and adulation. Listen, listen to them, Jeff. They actually believe that you can beat me at SummerSlam. (Crowd cheers)
Jeff: So do I.
Punk: So does our general manager. Teddy Long's the guy that said TLC is your match. It's Jeff Hardy's match, everybody. They're right, it is your match. This TLC is your last match. I know what I have to accomplish to get everything I want. When I beat you at SummerSlam and I take back my World Heavyweight Title, it will validate everything I've said in the past. I will prove once and for all, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that straight edge is the right way, that straight edge means I'm better than you. Jeff, I have to get rid of you to teach these people the difference between right and wrong. I have to get rid of you to teach them how to say, "just say no." I have to get rid of you so they stop living in your moment, and they wake up, and they start living in my reality. Make no mistake about it, Jeff; there's no turning back from this point on. You can talk about the space from the top of that ladder to this mat, but from here on out, there's nothing left. At SummerSlam, I will hurt you, and I will remove you and the stain of all your bad examples from the WWE forever.
Jeff: Punk, you can't destroy me, you can't destroy what I've created over my ten years here. Kansas City's not gonna listen to you. You won't beat me at SummerSlam, Punk. I will prove that I'm better than you in my specialty: Tables, Ladders, & Chairs.
Punk: You're right, Jeff. You know what, you wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them, because you need them to enable you. You need them to justify your reckless behavior with their support and their cheers, just like they need you to somehow justify their reckless behavior, with their smoking and their drinking and their use of prescription medication. They try in vain to live vicariously through a man who, by way of his lifestyle, thinks he can fly.”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

Interrupting Jeff Hardy's promo from the top of a ladder. August 21, 2009.
Friday Night SmackDown

Paul Klee photo

“[It].... is a real declaration of love toward art. Abstraction from this world more as a game, less as a failure of the earthly. Somewhere in between. The man in love no longer drinks and eats..”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Diary entry (1912), # 922; as quoted by Francesco Mazzaferro, in 'The Diaries of Paul Klee Part Four', : Klee as an Expressionist and Constructivist Painter http://letteraturaartistica.blogspot.nl/2015/05/paul-klee-ev27.html
1911 - 1914

Gillian Anderson photo

“Above anything else, stay true to yourself. Whether that means for you that you like to have blue hair, or you don't like to drink, or you are attracted to the same sex, or you want to remove yourself from Facebook, or you've got 3 different kids from 3 different dads but you know you're a really good mom, or you cry for a week because your turtle died. Whatever your truth is, stay true to yourself. But be a good person while you're at it.”

Gillian Anderson (1968) American-British film, television and theatre actress, activist and writer

When asked what advice would she give young feminist — Reddit "Sunday morning with Gillian Anderson. Grab a cup of coffee and A Vision of Fire. AMA." https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2j12o1/sunday_morning_with_gillian_anderson_grab_a_cup#cl7c2ps (October 12, 2014)
2010s

Eric Clapton photo

“In my lowest moments, the only reason I didn't commit suicide was that I knew I wouldn't be able to drink anymore if I was dead.”

Eric Clapton (1945) English musician, singer, songwriter, and guitarist

"Clapton: The Autobiography", about his alcoholism in the 1980s

Dave Matthews photo

“So why would you care
To get out of this place?
You and me and all our friends,
Such a happy human race.
Eat, drink and be merry,
For tomorrow we die.”

Dave Matthews (1967) American singer-songwriter, musician and actor

Tripping Billies
Remember Two Things (1993)

Irvine Welsh photo
John Mitchel photo

“Czar, I bless thee. I kiss the hem of thy garment. I drink to thy health and longevity. Give us war in our time, O Lord!”

John Mitchel (1815–1875) Irish politician

From "Jail Journal; or Five Years in British Prisons"

“The Lord… said: Unless a man shall eat my flesh, he shall not have in himself eternal life. Certain of his disciples, the seventy to wit, were scandalised, and said: This is a hard saying; who can understand it? And they departed from him, and walked with him no more. His saying… seemed to them a hard one. They received it foolishly: they thought of it carnally. For they fancied, that the Lord was going to cut from his own body certain morsels and to give those morsels to them. Hence they said: This is a hard saying. But they themselves were hard: not the saying. For, if, instead of being hard, they had been mild, they would have… learned from him what those learned, who remained while they departed. For, when the twelve disciples had remained with him after the others had departed,… he instructed them, and said unto them: It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing. The words, which I speak unto you, are spirit and life. As if he had said: Understand spiritually what I have spoken. You are Not about to eat this identical body, which you see; and you are Not about to drink this identical blood, which they who crucify me will pour out. I have commended unto you a certain sacrament. This, if spiritually understood, will quicken you. Though it must be celebrated visibly, it must be understood invisibly.”

George Stanley Faber (1773–1854) British theologian

Source: Christ's Discourse at Capernaum: Fatal to the Doctrine of Transubstantiation (1840), pp. 144-147

Dashiell Hammett photo
Lois Duncan photo

“The reasons for censorship reflect the social climate of the times. The publisher of Debutante Hill asked me to revise the manuscript because I had a 19-year-old boy (the ‘bad guy’) drink a beer. When I changed the beer to a Coke, the book was published and won the ‘Seventeenth Summer Literary Award.”

Lois Duncan (1934–2016) American young-adult and children's writer

On censorship, interview https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20130801124618/http://absolutewrite.com/specialty_writing/lois_duncan.htm in Absolute Write (2002)
1990–2002

William Morris photo

“I too
Will go, remembering what I said to you,
When any land, the first to which we came
Seemed that we sought, and set your hearts aflame,
And all seemed won to you: but still I think,
Perchance years hence, the fount of life to drink,
Unless by some ill chance I first am slain.
But boundless risk must pay for boundless gain.”

William Morris (1834–1896) author, designer, and craftsman

"Prologue : The Wanderers"; the last line here may be related to far older expressions such as: "Naught venture, naught have" by Thomas Tusser.
The Earthly Paradise (1868-70)

Roger Ebert photo

“Here is how [life] happens. We find something we want to do, if we are lucky, or something we need to do, if we are like most people. We use it as a way to obtain food, shelter, clothing, mates, comfort, a first folio of Shakespeare, model airplanes, American Girl dolls, a handful of rice, sex, solitude, a trip to Venice, Nikes, drinking water, plastic surgery, child care, dogs, medicine, education, cars, spiritual solace -- whatever we think we need. To do this, we enact the role we call "me," trying to brand ourselves as a person who can and should obtain these things.In the process, we place the people in our lives into compartments and define how they should behave to our advantage. Because we cannot force them to follow our desires, we deal with projections of them created in our minds. But they will be contrary and have wills of their own. Eventually new projections of us are dealing with new projections of them. Sometimes versions of ourselves disagree. We succumb to temptation — but, oh, father, what else was I gonna do? I feel like hell. I repent. I'll do it again… This has not been a conventional review. There is no need to name the characters, name the actors, assign adjectives to their acting. Look at who is in this cast. You know what I think of them. This film must not have seemed strange to them. It's what they do all day, especially waiting around for the director to make up his mind.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/synecdoche-new-york-2008 of Synecdoche, New York (5 November 2008)
Reviews, Four star reviews

Dinah Craik photo

“Drink, my jolly lads, drink with discerning,
Wedlock's a lane where there is no turning;
Never was owl more blind than a lover,
Drink and be merry, lads, half seas over.”

Dinah Craik (1826–1887) English novelist and poet

"Magnus and Morna", in Thirty Years, Poems New and Old (1880)

Logan Pearsall Smith photo
Harlan F. Stone photo
Philo photo
Anbumani Ramadoss photo

“We definitely condemn the incident where women were attacked, but the pub culture must stop. It is because of this that youth in the country have taken to drinking in a big way.”

Anbumani Ramadoss (1968) Indian politician

On the 2009 Mangalore pub attack, as quoted in " Pub culture against Indian ethos, must stop: Ramadoss http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Pub-culture-against-Indian-ethos-must-stop-Ramadoss/articleshow/4054517.cms", The Times of India (30 January 2009)

Thomas Szasz photo

“To produce 1 lb. of feedlot beef requires 7 lbs. of feed grain, which takes 7,000 lbs. of water to grow. Pass up one hamburger, and you'll save as much water as you save by taking 40 showers with a low-flow nozzle. Yet in the U. S., 70% of all the wheat, corn and other grain produced goes to feeding herds of livestock. Around the world, as more water is diverted to raising pigs and chickens instead of producing crops for direct consumption, millions of wells are going dry. … In the U. S., livestock now produce 130 times as much waste as people do. Just one hog farm in Utah, for example, produces more sewage than the city of Los Angeles. These megafarms are proliferating, and in populous areas their waste is tainting drinking water. In more pristine regions, from Indonesia to the Amazon, tropical rain forest is being burned down to make room for more and more cattle. … We, at least, have the flexibility—the omnivorous stomach and creative brain—to adapt. We can do it by moving down the food chain: eating foods that use less water and land, and that pollute far less, than cows and pigs do. In the long run, we can lose our memory of eating animals, and we will discover the intrinsic satisfactions of a diverse plant-based diet, as millions of people already have.”

Ed Ayres (1941) American magazine editor

"Will We Still Eat Meat?", in Time magazine (8 November 1999), pp. 1 http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,992523-1,00.html- 2 http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,992523-2,00.html.

Khalil Gibran photo
Warren Farrell photo
Swami Vivekananda photo
Stephen King photo
Robert Hunter (author) photo
Malcolm Muggeridge photo
Michael Moorcock photo
Brendan Behan photo

“I only drink on two occasions — When I am thirsty and when I'm not.”

Brendan Behan (1923–1964) Irish poet, short story writer, novelist, and playwright

As quoted in Malcolm Arnold: Rogue Genius (2004) by Anthony Meredith and Paul Harris, p. 337

Omar Khayyám photo

“And as for their piety towards God, it is very extraordinary; for before sun-rising they speak not a word about profane matters, but put up certain prayers which they have received from their forefathers, as if they made a supplication for its rising. After this every one of them are sent away by their curators, to exercise some of those arts wherein they are skilled, in which they labor with great diligence till the fifth hour. After which they assemble themselves together again into one place; and when they have clothed themselves in white veils, they then bathe their bodies in cold water. And after this purification is over, they every one meet together in an apartment of their own, into which it is not permitted to any of another sect to enter; while they go, after a pure manner, into the dining-room, as into a certain holy temple, and quietly set themselves down; upon which the baker lays them loaves in order; the cook also brings a single plate of one sort of food, and sets it before every one of them; but a priest says grace before meat; and it is unlawful for any one to taste of the food before grace be said. The same priest, when he hath dined, says grace again after meat; and when they begin, and when they end, they praise God, as he that bestows their food upon them; after which they lay aside their [white] garments, and betake themselves to their labors again till the evening; then they return home to supper, after the same manner; and if there be any strangers there, they sit down with them. Nor is there ever any clamor or disturbance to pollute their house, but they give every one leave to speak in their turn; which silence thus kept in their house appears to foreigners like some tremendous mystery; the cause of which is that perpetual sobriety they exercise, and the same settled measure of meat and drink that is allotted them, and that such as is abundantly sufficient for them.”

Jewish War

L. Ron Hubbard photo

“I'm drinking lots of rum and popping pinks and greys.”

L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986) American science fiction author, philosopher, cult leader, and the founder of the Church of Scientology

Letter to his wife (1967) as quoted in L. Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman? (1989) by Bent Corydon and L. Ron Hubbard, Jr (Ronald DeWolfe).

Kent Hovind photo

“Now, everything Marx did was intentionally anti-Christian. If the Bible is for it, he's against it. See, the Bible makes private property a real serious issue. Ownership of private property is critical. You can't have freedom without property rights. What good does it do to say that you have all kinds of freedom if there's no place to exercise your freedom? […] You could not possibly lose your property permanently in the Biblical system. Since every man has his own vine and his own fig tree, drink waters out of your own cistern, waters out of your own well. Private property is essential. […] Karl Marx developed the idea of a graduated income tax. The more you make, the more they take. That's Karl Marx's idea. He's said, "You need to abolish rights of inheritance." The Bible says a good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children. Karl Marx was against that. Confiscate property rights. Evolution is a foundation of Communist philosophy behind the money powers. Karl Marx said, "We need a central bank." This was a Communist idea. The banking system we're using today in America, the Federal Reserve, is a direct result of Karl Marx's thinking. There is nothing Federal about it. It's private bankers that run our currency. The Bible says, "The love of money is the root of all evil". All evil.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), The dangers of evolution

William Wordsworth photo

“Drink, pretty creature, drink!”

The Pet Lamb. A Pastoral, st. 1 (1800).
Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800)

“It’s that feeling when you make it home Friday night and pour yourself a drink or a glass of wine and feel like the blood has drained out of you… I actually think burnout is the wrong description of it. I think it’s ‘burn up. Physiologically, that is what you are doing because of the chronic stress being placed on your body.”

Richard Boyatzis (1946) American business theorist

Richard Boyatzis (2006) cited in: "BURNOUT: Though no one is immune, middle managers are most at risk in a weak economy in which staff cuts add pressure on remaining workers" in: The Plain Dealer, February 13, 2006.

Warren Farrell photo

“Where the light is, and each thing clear,
Separate from all others, standing in its place,
I drink the time and touch whatever's near, And hope for day when the whole world has that face:
For what assures her present every year?
In dark accidents the mind's sufficient grace.”

Delmore Schwartz (1913–1966) American poet

"The Beautiful American Word, Sure" http://www.pbs.org/hollywoodpresents/collectedstories/writing/write_ds_poetry.html
Selected Poems: Summer Knowledge (1959)

Alice Cooper photo

“I haven't had an alcoholic drink in 22 years, but when I did drink I'd go for either Canadian whisky or Budweiser. Sometimes both. For a long time I used to think "Hey you, get off the floor!"”

Alice Cooper (1948) American rock singer, songwriter and musician

was my name.
Interview with Nick Harper in The Guardian (28 November 2003).

“What was the shell doing,
on the shore? An ear endlessly
drinking?
What? Sound? Silence?
Which came first?
Listen.”

R.S. Thomas (1913–2000) Welsh poet

"Questions"
Later Poems (1983)

Jack Osbourne photo
Muhammad photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo
George F. Kennan photo
Albrecht Thaer photo
Ernest Hemingway photo
Kenneth Minogue photo
Daniel Handler photo
Lewis Mumford photo
August Strindberg photo
Margaret Mead photo
Michael Elmore-Meegan photo
Hunter S. Thompson photo
Hayley Jensen photo
John Fante photo
Dashiell Hammett photo

“But alas, I'm going to die!
I'm a chap who…clings to life with the fingernails of both hands.
One who drinks of love till it overflows his lips,
But alas, I'm going to die…
The other night I sat alone in agony,
Listening to the hours pass, wracked with sorrow…
I have arrived to face the cold border of nihility.”

Xuân Diệu (1916–1985) Vietnamese poet

"Nothingness" [Hư vô], as quoted in "Shattered Identities and Contested Images: Reflections of Poetry and History in 20th-Century Vietnam" by Neil Jamieson, in Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 7, No. 2, 1992, p. 87, and in Understanding Vietnam by Neil Jamieson (University of California Press, 1995), p. 162

Morarji Desai photo
Vincent Gallo photo
Yasunari Kawabata photo

“"Among those who give thoughts to things, is there one who does not think of suicide?" With me was the knowledge that that fellow Ikkyu twice contemplated suicide. I have "that fellow", because the priest Ikkyu is known even to children as a most amusing person, and because anecdotes about his limitlessly eccentric behavior have come down to us in ample numbers. It is said of him that children climbed his knee to stroke his beard, that wild birds took feed from his hand. It would seem from all this that he was the ultimate in mindlessness, that he was an approachable and gentle sort of priest. As a matter of fact he was the most severe and profound of Zen priests. Said to have been the son of an emperor, he entered a temple at the age of six, and early showed his genius as a poetic prodigy. At the same time he was troubled with the deepest of doubts about religion and life. "If there is a god, let him help me. If there is none, let me throw myself to the bottom of the lake and become food for fishes." Leaving behind these words he sought to throw himself into a lake, but was held back. … He gave his collected poetry the title "Collection of the Roiling Clouds", and himself used the expression "Roiling Clouds" as a pen name. In his collection and its successor are poems quite without parallel in the Chinese and especially the Zen poetry of the Japanese middle ages, erotic poems and poems about the secrets of the bedchamber that leave one in utter astonishment. He sought, by eating fish and drinking spirits and having commerce with women, to go beyond the rules and proscriptions of the Zen of his day, and to seek liberation from them, and thus, turning against established religious forms, he sought in the pursuit of Zen the revival and affirmation of the essence of life, of human existence, in a day civil war and moral collapse.”

Yasunari Kawabata (1899–1972) Japanese author, Nobel Prize winner

Japan, the Beautiful and Myself (1969)

Linda McQuaig photo
Tao Yuanming photo
Katie Hopkins photo
Anthony Burgess photo
John Fante photo
Studs Terkel photo

“I was walking downstairs carrying a drink in one hand and a book in the other. Don't try that after ninety.”

Studs Terkel (1912–2008) American author, historian and broadcaster

On breaking his hip, as quoted in "How Studs helps me lead my life" in Roger Ebert's Journal (24 May 2008) http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/05/how_studs_helps_me_lead_my_lif_1.html#more

Ernest Hemingway photo
Edmund Clarence Stedman photo
Richard Matheson photo
Sophocles photo

“Love is not a feeling; it's a sensation. Drinking water when you're thirsty is a sensation, not a feeling. Being in nature or swimming in the sea is a sensation, not a feeling.”

Barry Long (1926–2003) Australian spiritual teacher and writer

Love is not a feeling ~ The Article (1995)
Context: Love is not a feeling; it's a sensation. Drinking water when you're thirsty is a sensation, not a feeling. Being in nature or swimming in the sea is a sensation, not a feeling. Lying down when you're tired is sensational, not a feeling, although you may say it feels good. Feeling is an emotional interpretation of experience and these sensations don't need interpretation; they are just good or right. Making physical love rightly is a sensation, not a feeling. So is the love of God. The same goes for joy and beauty; both are sensational.

Richard Wright photo
Mansur Al-Hallaj photo

“The beloved does not drink a single drop of water without seeing His Face in the cup.”

Mansur Al-Hallaj (858–922) Persian mystic, revolutionary writer and teacher of Sufism

As quoted in Mystical Dimensions of Islam http://uncpress.unc.edu/browse/book_detail?title_id=583 (1978) by Annemarie Schimmel
Context: The beloved does not drink a single drop of water without seeing His Face in the cup. Allah is He Who flows between the pericardium and the heart, just as the tears flow from the eyelids.

P. J. O'Rourke photo
P. J. O'Rourke photo
Charles Sanders Peirce photo

“It is the man of science, eager to have his every opinion regenerated, his every idea rationalized, by drinking at the fountain of fact, and devoting all the energies of his life to the cult of truth, not as he understands it, but as he does not yet understand it, that ought properly to be called a philosopher.”

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist

"The Century's Great Men in Science" in The 19th Century : A Review of Progress During the Past One Hundred Years in the Chief Departments of Human Activity (1901), published by G. P. Putnam's Sons.
Context: It is the man of science, eager to have his every opinion regenerated, his every idea rationalized, by drinking at the fountain of fact, and devoting all the energies of his life to the cult of truth, not as he understands it, but as he does not yet understand it, that ought properly to be called a philosopher. To an earlier age knowledge was power — merely that and nothing more; to us it is life and the summum bonum. Emancipation from the bonds of self, of one's own prepossessions, importunately sought at the hands of that rational power before which all must ultimately bow, — this is the characteristic that distinguishes all the great figures of nineteenth-century science from those of former periods.

William Kingdon Clifford photo

“Do I seem to say, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die?" Far from it; on the contrary, I say, "Let us take hands and help, for this day we are alive together."”

William Kingdon Clifford (1845–1879) English mathematician and philosopher

"The First and the Last Catastrophe" in Popular Science Monthly (Vol. 7, (July 1875)
Context: It is a very serious thing to consider that not only the earth itself and all that beautiful face of Nature we see, but also the living things upon it, and all the consciousness of men, and the ideas of society, which have grown up upon the surface, must come to an end. We who hold that belief must just face the fact and make the best of it; and I think we are helped in this by the words of that Jew philosopher who was himself a worthy crown to the splendid achievements of his race in the cause of progress during the middle ages, Benedict Spinoza. He said, "The freeman thinks of nothing so little as of death, and his contemplation is not of death but of life." Our interest, it seems to me, lies with so much of the past as may serve to guide our actions in the present, and to intensify our pious allegiance to the fathers who have gone before us, and the brethren who are with us; and our interest lies with so much of the future as we may hope will be appreciably affected by our good actions now. Beyond that, as it seems to me, we do not know, and we ought not to care. Do I seem to say, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die?" Far from it; on the contrary, I say, "Let us take hands and help, for this day we are alive together."

Kenneth Grahame photo

“Banquets are always pleasant things, consisting mostly, as they do, of eating and drinking”

Dream Days (1898), The Reluctant Dragon
Context: Banquets are always pleasant things, consisting mostly, as they do, of eating and drinking; but the specially nice thing about a banquet is, that it comes when something's over, and there's nothing more to worry about, and to-morrow seems a long way off. St George was happy because there had been a fight and he hadn't had to kill anybody; for he didn't really like killing, though he generally had to do it. The dragon was happy because there had been a fight, and so far from being hurt in it he had won popularity and a sure footing in society. The Boy was happy because there had been a fight, and in spite of it all his two friends were on the best of terms. And all the others were happy because there had been a fight, and — well, they didn't require any other reasons for their happiness.

Saul Leiter photo

“I much prefer to drink coffee, listen to music and to paint when I feel like it.”

Saul Leiter (1923–2013) American photographer

As quoted in Saul Leiter (2008) by Agnès Sire
Context: In order to build a career and to be successful, one has to be determined. One has to be ambitious. I much prefer to drink coffee, listen to music and to paint when I feel like it.

Aeschylus photo

“Of all the gods, Death only craves not gifts:
Nor sacrifice, nor yet drink-offering poured
Avails; no altars hath he, nor is soothed
By hymns of praise. From him alone of all
The powers of heaven Persuasion holds aloof.”

Aeschylus (-525–-456 BC) ancient Athenian playwright

Fragment 146 (trans. by Plumptre), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

John Galsworthy photo

“It is an age of stir and change, a season of new wine and old bottles. Yet, assuredly, in spite of breakages and waste, a wine worth the drinking is all the time being made.”

John Galsworthy (1867–1933) English novelist and playwright

Vague Thoughts On Art (1911)
Context: I cannot help thinking that historians, looking back from the far future, will record this age as the Third Renaissance. We who are lost in it, working or looking on, can neither tell what we are doing, nor where standing; but we cannot help observing, that, just as in the Greek Renaissance, worn-out Pagan orthodoxy was penetrated by new philosophy; just as in the Italian Renaissance, Pagan philosophy, reasserting itself, fertilised again an already too inbred Christian creed; so now Orthodoxy fertilised by Science is producing a fresh and fuller conception of life — a love of Perfection, not for hope of reward, not for fear of punishment, but for Perfection's sake. Slowly, under our feet, beneath our consciousness, is forming that new philosophy, and it is in times of new philosophies that Art, itself in essence always a discovery, must flourish. Those whose sacred suns and moons are ever in the past, tell us that our Art is going to the dogs; and it is, indeed, true that we are in confusion! The waters are broken, and every nerve and sinew of the artist is strained to discover his own safety. It is an age of stir and change, a season of new wine and old bottles. Yet, assuredly, in spite of breakages and waste, a wine worth the drinking is all the time being made.

Robert Hunter (author) photo

“Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.”

Robert Hunter (author) (1874–1942) American sociologist, author, golf course architect

Source: Why We Fail as Christians (1919), p. 93-94
Context: Simple, direct, and clear as they [these words] are, Jesus later in the day undertook to make them more vivid.... that no one should doubt them or lack in fully understanding them, Jesus, after leaving the Temple, went to the Mount of Olives, and there explained the meaning of his words by a picture of the Day of Judgment.... He says that when the Son of Man shall come in his glory to the judgment seat, all the nations shall be gathered before him, "and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me." …And Jesus answers them "Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" …Surely it is worthy of note that Jesus does not indicate that the sheep will be questioned as to their sect or creed.... Moreover, the sheep are not even spoken of as the faithful or as the believers; they are simply those who love their fellow-men and therefore they are unconsciously righteous. Turning to the goats, he does not ask them either as to their faith, but as they had not fed the hungry, nor given drink to the thirsty, nor taken any stranger in, they are condemned to "everlasting fire."

“The waters run that we might drink of them, but they are also symbols of the futility of man.”

Source: Drenai series, The King Beyond the Gate, Ch. 12
Context: All things in the world are created for man, yet all have two purposes. The waters run that we might drink of them, but they are also symbols of the futility of man. They reflect our lives in rushing beauty, birthed in the purity of the mountains. As babes they babble and run, gushing and growing as they mature into strong young rivers. Then they widen and slow until at least they meander, like old men, to join with the sea.

Voltairine de Cleyre photo

“Ah, not to a blaze of light I go,
Nor shouts of a triumph train;
I go down to kiss the dregs of woe,
And drink up the Cup of Pain.”

Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912) American anarchist writer and feminist

And Thou Too (1888)
Context: Ah, not to a blaze of light I go,
Nor shouts of a triumph train;
I go down to kiss the dregs of woe,
And drink up the Cup of Pain. And whether a scaffold or crucifix waits
'Neath the light of my silver star,
I know and I care not: I only know
I shall pause not though it be far.