Quotes about drinking
page 7

Charles Bukowski photo
Reginald Heber photo
Robert Anton Wilson photo

“Each mans spills the drink he loves.”

Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) American author and polymath

Cosmic Trigger II

Jean Froissart photo

“If we all spring from a single father and mother, Adam and Eve, how can they claim or prove that they are lords more than us, except by making us produce and grow the wealth which they spend? They are clad in velvet and camlet lined with squirrel and ermine, while we go dressed in coarse cloth. They have the wines, the spices and the good bread: we have the rye, the husks and the straw, and we drink water. They have shelter and ease in their fine manors, and we have hardship and toil, the wind and the rain in the fields. And from us must come, from our labour, the things which keep them in luxury”

Jean Froissart (1337–1405) French writer

Et, se venons tout d'un père et d'une mere, Adam et Eve, en quoi poent il dire ne monstrer que il sont mieux signeur que nous, fors parce que il nous font gaaignier et labourer ce que il despendent? Il sont vestu de velours et de camocas fourés de vair et de gris, et nous sommes vesti de povres draps. Il ont les vins, les espisses et les bons pains, et nous avons le soille, le retrait et le paille, et buvons l'aige. Ils ont le sejour et les biaux manoirs, et nous avons le paine et le travail, et le pleue et le vent as camps, et faut que de nous viengne et de nostre labeur ce dont il tiennent les estas.
Book 2, p. 212.
Froissart is again quoting John Ball.
Chroniques (1369–1400)

Henry Suso photo

“Question: Does a detached person remain unoccupied all the time, or what does he or she do?
Answer: The activity of really detached people lies in their becoming detached, and their achievement is to remain unoccupied because they remain calm in action and unconcerned about their achievements.
Question: What is their conduct toward their fellow human beings?
Answer: They enjoy the companionship of people, but without being compromised by them. They love them without attachment, and they show them sympathy without anxious concern - all in true freedom.
Question: Is such a person required to go to confession?
Answer: The confession that is motivated by love is nobler than one motivated by necessity.
Question: What is such people’s prayer like? Are they supposed to pray, too?
Answer: Their prayer is effective because they forestall the influence of the senses. God is spirit and knows whether this person has put an obstacle in the way or whether he or she has acted from selfish impulses. And then a light is enkindled in their highest power, which makes clear that God is the being, life and activity within them and that they are merely instruments.
Question: What are such a person's eating, drinking and sleeping like?
Answer: Externally, and in keeping with their sensuous nature, the outward person eats. Internally, however, they are as if not eating; otherwise, One does not arrive at the goal by asking questions. It is rather through detachment that one comes to this hidden truth they would be enjoying food and rest like an animal. This is also the case in other things pertaining to human existence.”

Henry Suso (1295–1366) Dominican friar and mystic

The Exemplar, The Little Book of Truth

Frank Herbert photo
Tom Lehrer photo
Julia Gillard photo

“You've got to gather yourself, you've got to give the speech, go see the Governor-General, do all of that. And then you get to have a few drinks with friends, so that's not that hard.”

Julia Gillard (1961) Australian politician and lawyer, 27th Prime Minister of Australia

Gillard lists the events which followed her loss to Rudd in the June 2013 Labor Party leadership spill
The Killing Season, Episode three: The Long Shadow (2010–13)

Samuel Butler photo

“Doing the commodity business with China is like drinking coffee. We enjoyed three spoons of sugar per cup for a long time. Suddenly, when that’s cut to one and a half spoons, we feel bitter — because it used to be so sweet.”

Sukanto Tanoto (1949) Indonesian businessman

Interview, New York Times, Dec 1, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/22/business/international/indonesia-economy-interest-rates.html?_r=0
2015

John Mayer photo
Sarah Vowell photo

“I talk about going to his Inauguration and crying when he took the oath, 'cause I was so afraid he was going to "wreck the economy and muck up the drinking water"… the failure of my pessimistic imagination at that moment boggles my mind now.”

Sarah Vowell (1969) American author, journalist, essayist and social commentator

Referring to George W. Bush on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart http://www.cc.com/video-clips/e88k08/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-sarah-vowell (2006-02-21)

Horace photo

“Now is the time for drinking, now the time to dance footloose upon the earth.”
Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero pulsanda tellus.

Horace book Odes

Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero
pulsanda tellus.
Book I, ode xxxvii, line 1
Odes (c. 23 BC and 13 BC)

Anthony Burgess photo
Werner von Blomberg photo
Michel De Montaigne photo

“The press – the popular press – is drinking in the Last Chance Saloon.”

David Mellor (1949) former British politician, non-practising barrister, broadcaster, journalist and businessman

Quoted in Roy Greenslade, "A decade of diplomacy," http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2001/feb/05/mondaymediasection.pressandpublishing The Guardian (2001-02-05)
Comment made in 1989 after a series of salacious stories in the tabloid press.

Muhammad photo
John Constable photo

“A sketch will not serve more than one state of mind & will not serve to drink at again & again — in a sketch there is nothing but the one state of mind — that which you were in at the time.”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

Letter to Rev. John Fisher (3 November 1823), from John Constable's Correspondence, ed. R.B. Beckett (Ipswich, Suffolk Records Society, 1962-1970), part 6, pp. 142-143
1820s

Isaac Leib Peretz photo

“We take a drink only for the sake of the benediction.”

Isaac Leib Peretz (1852–1915) Yiddish language author and playwright

Quoted by M. Samuel, Prince of the Ghetto, 179.

Isaac Asimov photo

“Radiation, unlike smoking, drinking, and overeating, gives no pleasure, so the possible victims object.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

As quoted in The Journal of NIH Research (1990), 2, 30
General sources

Nigel Cumberland photo

“Refusing to forgive never made anyone feel better about anything. All you are doing is holding on to feelings of upset, anger and jealousy and that can never be good. I once read that being angry and unforgiving towards someone else is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, 100 Things Successful People Do: Little Exercises for Successful Living (2016) https://books.google.ae/books?idnu0lCwAAQBAJ&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIMjAE

Abraham Cowley photo

“Fill all the glasses there, for why
Should every creature drink but I?
Why, man of morals, tell me why?”

Abraham Cowley (1618–1667) British writer

From Anacreon, ii. Drinking; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Raymond Carver photo
Simone Weil photo
Pat Condell photo

“But just because I believe that religion is a cynical perversion of the human spirit that exists purely for the benefit of the parasites we know as clergy, doesn't mean I'm not looking for answers to the big questions just like everybody else — you know, the questions that religion pretends it has answers to, because it knows that for some people, anyone answer is better than no answer at all. Questions like, Why are we here? Where did we come from? Where are we going?…Is there an afterlife, and if so, is it fully licensed for alcoholic drinks? That last bit may seem like a trivial concern to you, but not to me, because I live in a society where many people enjoy a social drink from time to time — not a huge amount, just enough to kill a horse. And in these enlightened days of the twenty-first century, when everyone's human rights and cultural identity are so very important, I don't see why I should have to abandon my culture, just because I'm dead. It's only the afterlife, not Saudi Arabia. Let's keep things in perspective. Of course in reality, we know that there will be beer in heaven, and lots of it, otherwise it wouldn't be heaven, would it? It's almost not even worth pointing that out, but I thought I would anyway, just in case someone wants to take the opportunity to be offended.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"God is not enough" (23 May 2008) http://youtube.com/watch?v=1czXvHSjDac&feature=related)
2008

Guillaume Apollinaire photo

“O pretty ship, my memory
Isn't this far enough to sea,
And the sea not fit to drink?
Haven't we drifted far and lost
From fair dawn to dreary dusk?”

Mon beau navire ô ma mémoire
Avons-nous assez navigué
Dans une onde mauvaise à boire
Avons-nous assez divagué
De la belle aube au triste soir
"La Chanson du Mal-Aimé" (Song of the Poorly Loved), line 51; translation by William Meredith, from Francis Steegmuller Apollinaire: Poet Among the Painters (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973) p. 95.
Alcools (1912)

Russell Brand photo
Stanley Baldwin photo
Halldór Laxness photo
Hunter S. Thompson photo
Ataol Behramoğlu photo

“Writing poems is perhaps the loveliest deception
Later they'll make a picture or something, then go and drink wine”

Ataol Behramoğlu (1942) Turkish writer

"How Awful When Poetry Ages As It Is Read"
I've Learned Some Things (2008)

Nikos Kazantzakis photo
Muammar Gaddafi photo
Cormac McCarthy photo
Ramakrishna photo
Alexandre Dumas photo
Rudyard Kipling photo
Elia M. Ramollah photo

“Try to find out the answer to, “Who am I?” and drink from the cup of union.”

Elia M. Ramollah (1973) founder and leader of the El Yasin Community

Flow of Divine Guidance (vol.1)

“I, whenever I see thee, thirst, and holding the cup, apply it to my lips more for thy sake than for drinking.”

Philostratus (170) Lucius Flavius Philostratus, Greek sophist of Roman imperial period

XXV. Quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 801-03.
Letters

Sheri-D Wilson photo

“I would crush a priceless pearl
and drink it,
to stay in this moment
for all time.”

Sheri-D Wilson (1958) Canadian Spoken Word Poet

"Gypsy Madonna from Florence on the Opening Night of Lorca"
Goddess Gone Fishing for a Map of the Universe (2012)

Dylan Moran photo

“It's not even a drink. It's a way for having the cops around without using a phone.”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

On Tequila.
What It Is (2009)

Dave Eggers photo
Bob Dylan photo

“I'll eat when I'm hungry, drink when I'm dry”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Time Out of Mind (1997), Standing In The Doorway

Ben Jonson photo

“As he brews, so shall he drink.”

Act ii, Scene 1
Every Man in His Humour (1598)

Narendra Modi photo
George Mikes photo
Conor Oberst photo
Phil Brooks photo

“I tried. I tried so hard to empathize with all of your weaknesses. I implored every single one of you to just say "no," and all my empathy got was for you to love Jeff Hardy that much more than you already did. But this will not deter me. I will stay the course; I still believe in teaching you people the difference between right and wrong. (Audience chants "Hardy!") Oh, obviously it's gonna be challenging, listening to you people, and by the looks of some of you, it's gonna be a big challenge. But just like any other challenge that's come down the pipe in my lifetime, I'm gonna meet that challenge head on like a man, just like I did last week. Let's take a look. (Recap of Punk's assault on Hardy) See, now I know why you people love Jeff Hardy so much. It's because you are all just like him; and, in turn, Jeff Hardy is just like all of you. The reality is, none of you have the strength to be straight-edge. (Audience resumes chant) You gravitate towards Jeff because it's the easy way out: it's easier to weak like Jeff, because you sure can't be strong like me. Oh, you can boo all you want. I know why you boo, you know why you boo. It's because I tell the truth. And the truth sometimes hurts, doesn't it? For instance, what does it say on your prescription bottle of pills? "Take one every four hours"? Well, don't tell me you people don't gobble four, six, eight at a time like they were Pez. That is drug abuse—I don't do that. I also don't smoke, and those who do are stupid. You gotta be stupid to not listen to the Surgeon General, especially when he prints the warning label on the package of smokes. You gotta be a fool. And we can talk about those funny cigarettes, and you obviously know what I'm talking about because you cheer, and that's utterly sad. That's pathetic. I…I can't even wrap my head around you people cheering, 'cause when you smoke those funny cigarettes, not only is that hazardous to your health, it's also illegal. So those who have taken a puff, not only are you poisoning yourself, you're also breaking the law, so the vast majority of everybody here in this arena is a criminal. I am not a criminal—I never have been, and I never will be. Now let's talk about alcohol. I've saved the best poison for last, see because this is a gateway drug. Don't tell me not a single one of you here has ever said, "I'm gonna go out for one drink," and one leads to two, and two drinks leads to three, and then it's a double of this, and a shot of that, and then your head winds up in the toilet, night in and night out. Congratulations, that is alcoholism. And in my book, if you even take one drink, you're an alcoholic. So I understand why you people love Jeff Hardy so much, I understand why Jeff loves you—it's because you're all weak. Whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, you deserve better. This entire world deserves better. What you need is a leader. You need a strong leader who's gonna stand up in the face of adversity and just say "no."”

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

You need a strong leader that's gonna carry the banner of the World Heavyweight Championship with honor, with pride, respect, dignity, integrity, and class. What you people need is a straight-edge World Heavyweight Champion. You need CM Punk.
August 7, 2009
Friday Night SmackDown

Paul Krugman photo
Al-Biruni photo
Hunter S. Thompson photo
Heidi Klum photo
Denise Levertov photo

“pure dust that is all
in all. Bless,
weightless Spirit. Drink
Caliban, push your tongue
heavy into the calyx.”

Denise Levertov (1923–1997) Poet

Conversation in Moscow, The Freeing of the Dust

John Gower photo
Rebecca West photo
Chris Cornell photo
Sören Kierkegaard photo
W.C. Fields photo

“Don't say you can't give up drinking. It's easy. I've done it a thousand times.”

W.C. Fields (1880–1946) actor

The Temperance Lecture

Alex Jones photo

“I grew up in Dallas, Texas, drinking sodium fluoridated water. All the scientific studies show my IQ has been reduced by at least 20 points. The shadow of who I would have been calls out from the grave.”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

Question Your Reality https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCnXCt4-iYw, 11 February 2008.
2008

Boris Johnson photo
Douglas Coupland photo
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay photo
John Dryden photo

“Drinking is the soldier’s pleasure;
Rich the treasure;
Sweet the pleasure;
Sweet is pleasure after pain.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

Source: Alexander’s Feast http://www.bartleby.com/40/265.html (1697), l. 57–60.

Quentin Crisp photo
Bill O'Reilly photo

“Like a brain surgeon who drinks a martini when he's not on call, the successful kids in your school may smoke pot on occasion, but they are not stoners.”

[2004-09-28, The O'Reilly Factor for Kids: A Survival Guide for America's Families, HarperCollins, 9780060544249, 2004047266, 6035580W, 67]

George William Russell photo

“Oh, wow, what a scene that place was - that heavenly drug down sexual perversion get their rocks off health spa. I was already so bombed I don't know how I got there. I got down to the pool, where all the freaks were. I met Paul America at the pool and I told him we were probably in danger if we stayed, but we were so blasted we forgot what was good for us and what wasn't, and the whole place turned into a giant orgy... every kind of sex freak, from homosexuals to nymphomaniacs... oh, everybody eating each other on the raft, and drinking, guzzling tequila and vodka and Scotch and bourbon and shooting up every other second... losing syringes down the pool drains, the needles of the mainline scene, blocking the water infiltration system with broken syringes. Oh, it was really some night just going on an incredible sexual tailspin. Gobble, gobble, gobble. Couldn't get enough of it. It was one of the wildest scenes I've ever been in or ever hope to be in. I should be ashamed of myself. I'm not, but I should be. Sex and speed, wow! Like, oh God. A twenty-four-hour climax that can go on for days. And there's no way to explain it unless you've been through it; there's no way to tell anyone who hasn't tasted it. I'd like to turn on the whole world for just a moment... just for a moment. I'm greedy; I'd like to keep most of it for myself and a few others, a few of my friends... to keep that superlative high, just on the cusp of each day... so that I'd radiate sunshine.”

Edie Sedgwick (1943–1971) Socialite, actress, model

Ciao! Manhattan tapes, recalling its pool spa orgy scene
Edie : American Girl (1982)

Heinrich Himmler photo
Matthew Prior photo

“A Rechabite poor Will must live,
And drink of Adam's ale.”

Matthew Prior (1664–1721) British diplomat, poet

The Wandering Pilgrim.; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Gary Johnson photo
Ernest Hemingway photo
Gerry Rafferty photo
Viktor Schauberger photo

“It is possible to regulate watercourses over any given distance without embankment works; to transport timber and other materials, even when heavier than water, for example ore, stones, etc., down the centre of such water-courses; to raise the height of the water table in the surrounding countryside and to endow the water with all those elements necessary for the prevailing vegetation. Furthermore it is possible in this way to render timber and other such materials non-inflammable and rot resistant; to produce drinking and spa-water for man, beast and soil of any desired composition and performance artificially, but in the way that it occurs in Nature; to raise water in a vertical pipe without pumping devices; to produce any amount of electricity and radiant energy almost without cost; to raise soil quality and to heal cancer, tuberculosis and a variety of nervous disorders… the practical implementation of this … would without doubt signify a complete reorientation in all areas of science and technology. By application of these new found laws, I have already constructed fairly large installations in the spheres of log-rafting and river regulation, which as is known, have functioned faultlessly for a decade, and which today still present insoluble enigmas to the various scientific disciplines concerned.”

Viktor Schauberger (1885–1958) austrian philosopher and inventor

Viktor Schauberger: Our Senseless Toil (1934)

Chuck Palahniuk photo
Joseph Conrad photo

“This stretch of the Thames from London Bridge to the Albert Docks is to other watersides of river ports what a virgin forest would be to a garden. It is a thing grown up, not made. It recalls a jungle by the confused, varied, and impenetrable aspect of the buildings that line the shore, not according to a planned purpose, but as if sprung up by accident from scattered seeds. Like the matted growth of bushes and creepers veiling the silent depths of an unexplored wilderness, they hide the depths of London’s infinitely varied, vigorous, seething life. In other river ports it is not so. They lie open to their stream, with quays like broad clearings, with streets like avenues cut through thick timber for the convenience of trade… But London, the oldest and greatest of river ports, does not possess as much as a hundred yards of open quays upon its river front. Dark and impenetrable at night, like the face of a forest, is the London waterside. It is the waterside of watersides, where only one aspect of the world’s life can be seen, and only one kind of men toils on the edge of the stream. The lightless walls seem to spring from the very mud upon which the stranded barges lie; and the narrow lanes coming down to the foreshore resemble the paths of smashed bushes and crumbled earth where big game comes to drink on the banks of tropical streams.Behind the growth of the London waterside the docks of London spread out unsuspected, smooth, and placid, lost amongst the buildings like dark lagoons hidden in a thick forest. They lie concealed in the intricate growth of houses with a few stalks of mastheads here and there overtopping the roof of some four-story warehouse.”

London Bridge to the Royal Albert Dock
The Mirror of the Sea (1906), On the River Thames, Ch. 16

Bernard Cornwell photo

“Goodness," I babbled, "but how awful for you. Not drinking, I mean. I mean, imagine getting up in the morning knowing that you're not going to feel any better all day.”

Kyril Bonfiglioli (1928–1985) British art dealer

Source: The Mortdecai Trilogy, Don't Point That Thing At Me (1972), Ch. 13.

Paul Weller (singer) photo

“Life is a drink and you get drunk when you're young.”

Paul Weller (singer) (1958) English singer-songwriter, Guitarist

When You're Young (1979)

Henry David Thoreau photo
George Herbert photo

“77. When a dog is a-drowning every one offers him drink.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

Anton Chekhov photo
John Keats photo
Charles Mackay photo
Conrad Aiken photo
Antisthenes photo
Primo Levi photo
Thomas Gainsborough photo