Quotes about drinking
page 8

Bob Barr photo

“What has to do with your ability to fall asleep is not caffeine. It's having a clean conscience. I have a clean conscience so I can drink all the caffeine I want.”

Bob Barr (1948) Republican and Libertarian politician

Los Angeles Times, (23 July 2008) He's Bob Barr, and he's running for president. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-barr23-2008jul23,0,7621903.story?page=1 Los Angeles Times. 23 July 2008.
2000s, 2008

Anthony Burgess photo
Ray Nagin photo

“You take dark chocolate, you mix it with white milk, and it becomes a delicious drink. That is the chocolate I am talking about.”

Ray Nagin (1956) politician, businessman

Explaining the previous remarks. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4622038.stm
2006

Algernon Charles Swinburne photo
Thomas Fuller (writer) photo

“294. A Man may lead his Horse to Water, but cannot make him drink.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

William Hazlitt photo
Amir Taheri photo

“Some poets still write about the hair and eyes and body of a beloved and depict scenes of joy when lovers meet to drink and dance and be merry. But that is not the kind of poetry that the Islamic movement, grown on the concept of jihad and martyrdom, wants.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

When the Ayatollah Dictates Poetry http://www.aawsat.net/2015/07/article55344336/when-the-ayatollah-dictates-poetry, Ashraq Al-Awsat (Jul 11, 2015).

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow photo
Amy Hempel photo
Amanda Filipacchi photo
Nikos Kazantzakis photo
Nicholas of Cusa photo
Jonathan Edwards photo
Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi photo

“(…) I have written so far around 200 books and articles on different aspects of science, philosophy, theology, and hekmat (wisdom). (…) I never entered the service of any king as a military man or a man of office, and if I ever did have a conversation with a king, it never went beyond my medical responsibility and advice. (…) Those who have seen me know, that I did not into excess with eating, drinking or acting the wrong way. As to my interest in lil pump yuhh!! people know perfectly well and must have witnessed how I have devoted all my life to science since my youth. My patience and diligence in the pursuit of science has been such that on one special issue specifically I have written 20,000 pages (in small print), moreover I spent fifteen years of my life - night and day - writing the big collection entitled Al Hawi. It was during this time that I lost my eyesight, my hand became paralyzed, with the result that I am now deprived of reading and writing. Nonetheless, I've never given up, but kept on reading and writing with the help of others. I could make concessions with my opponents and admit some shortcomings, but I am most curious what they have to say about my scientific achievement. If they consider my approach incorrect, they could present their views and state their points clearly, so that I may study them, and if I determined their views to be right, I would admit it. However, if I disagreed, I would discuss the matter to prove my standpoint. If this is not the case, and they merely disagree with my approach and way of life, I would appreciate they only use my written knowledge and stop interfering with my behaviour.”

Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (865–925) Persian polymath, physician, alchemist and chemist, philosopher

Lost History: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Scientists, Thinkers, and Artists

George Carlin photo
Ayaan Hirsi Ali photo
Increase Mather photo

“Drink is in itself a good creature of God, but the abuse of drink is from Satan.”

Increase Mather (1639–1723) Puritan minister, academic, activist

As quoted in The Truth About Alcohol (2005) by Barry Youngerman and Mark J. Kittleson, p. 129.

Baltasar Gracián photo

“Don't live by generalities, unless it be to act virtuously, and don't ask desire to follow precise laws, for you will have to drink tomorrow from the water you scorn today.”

No vaya por generalidades en el vivir, si ya no fuere en favor de la virtud, ni intime leyes precisas al querer, que avrá de bever mañana del agua que desprecia hoi.
Maxim 288 (p. 162)
The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)

Robert Smith (musician) photo
Nikos Kazantzakis photo
Beck photo
Peter Tatchell photo
Thomas Szasz photo
Achille Starace photo

“The English seem to think drinking wine is like committing adultery, something you do rarely and abroad.”

William Nicholson (1948) British screenwriter, playwright and novelist

Source: Motherland (2012 novel), p. 18

David Orrell photo

“It can be annoying to find out the name of a famous local landmark has no significance other than belonging to some distant relation or drinking buddy of the explorer.”

David Orrell (1962) Canadian mathematician

Source: The Other Side Of The Coin (2008), Chapter 8, Light Versus Darkness, 237

John Heywood photo

“A man may well bring a horse to the water,
But he cannot make him drinke without he will.”

John Heywood (1497–1580) English writer known for plays, poems and a collection of proverbs

Part I, chapter 11.
Proverbs (1546), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Variant: A man may well bring a horse to the water,
But he cannot make him drinke without he will.

Madonna photo
Jack Osbourne photo
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe photo

“Smoking stupefies a man, and makes him incapable of thinking or writing. It is only fit for idlers, people who are always bored, who sleep for a third of their lifetime, fritter away another third in eating, drinking, and other necessary or unnecessary affairs, and don’t know—though they are always complaining that life is so short—what to do with the rest of their time. Such lazy Turks find mental solace in handling a pipe and gazing at the clouds of smoke that they puff into the air; it helps them to kill time. Smoking induces drinking beer, for hot mouths need to be cooled down. Beer thickens the blood, and adds to the intoxication produced by the narcotic smoke. The nerves are dulled and the blood clotted. If they go on as they seem to be doing now, in two or three generations we shall see what these beer-swillers and smoke-puffers have made of Germany. You will notice the effect on our literature—mindless, formless, and hopeless; and those very people will wonder how it has come about. And think of the cost of it all! Fully 25,000,000 thalers a year end in smoke all over Germany, and the sum may rise to forty, fifty, or sixty millions. The hungry are still unfed, and the naked unclad. What can become of all the money? Smoking, too, is gross rudeness and unsociability. Smokers poison the air far and wide and choke every decent man, unless he takes to smoking in self-defence. Who can enter a smoker’s room without feeling ill? Who can stay there without perishing?”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Heinrich Luden, Rueckblicke in mein Leben, Jena 1847
Attributed

Bill Hicks photo

“"But, doctor, what will happen to my teeth and bones if I stop drinking milk?" Nothing. Nothing that wouldn't have happened anyway.”

Frank Oski (1932–1996) American pediatrician

Source: Don't Drink Your Milk! (1983), p. 50

Adam Roberts photo
Richard Burton photo
Shi Nai'an photo

“What excites pleasure in me is the meeting and conversing with old friends. But it is very galling when my friends do not visit me because there is a biting wind, or the roads are muddy through the rain, or perhaps because they are sick. Then I feel isolated. Although I myself do not drink, yet I provide spirits for my friends, […]. In front of my house runs a great river, and there I can sit with my friends in the shadow of the lovely trees. […] When they come they drink and chat, just as they please, but our pleasure is in the conversation and not in the liquor. We do not discuss politics because we are so isolated here that our news is simply composed of rumors, and it would only be a waste of time to talk with untrustworthy information. We also never talk about other people's faults, because in this world nobody is wrong, and we should beware of backbiting. We do not wish to injure anyone, and therefore our conversation is of no consequence to anyone. We discuss human nature about which people know so little because they are too busy to study it.”

Shi Nai'an (1296–1372) Chinese writer

Variant translation by Lin Yutang: "When all my friends come together to my house, there are sixteen persons in all, but it is seldom that they all come. But except for rainy or stormy days, it is also seldom that none of them comes. Most of the days, we have six or seven persons in the house, and when they come, they do not immediately begin to think; they would take a sip when they feel like it and stop when they feel like it, for they regard the pleasure as consisting in the conversation, and not in the wine. We do not talk about court politics, not only because it lies outside our proper occupation, but also because at such a distance most of the news is based upon hearsay; hearsay news is mere rumour, and to discuss rumours would be a waste of our saliva. We also do not talk about people's faults, for people have no faults, and we should not malign them. We do not say things to shock people and no one is shocked; on the other hand, we do wish people to understand what we say, but people still don't understand what we say. For such things as we talk about lie in the depths of the human heart, and the people of the world are too busy to hear them." (The Importance of Living, 1937; pp. 218–219)
Preface to Water Margin

Taliesin photo
Anastacia photo
Billy Corgan photo
John Ball (priest) photo
Anthony Burgess photo
Ron White photo
Josh Homme photo

“Dave (Catching) played lap steel, a little guitar, keys and did a lot of drinking.”

Josh Homme (1973) American musician

Over the Years and Through the Woods, "The Bronze" commentary footage (2005)
Over the Years and Through the Woods

“We can drink till all look blue.”

John Ford (dramatist) (1586–1639) dramatist

Act IV, sc. ii.
The Lady's Trial (1638)

Andy Warhol photo
Warren Farrell photo
Ron Paul photo
Toni Morrison photo
Hilaire Belloc photo
John Fletcher photo

“Drink today, and drown all sorrow;
You shall perhaps not do't tomorrow.”

John Fletcher (1579–1625) English Jacobean playwright

Act II, scene ii.
Rollo, Duke of Normandy, or The Bloody Brother, (c. 1617; revised c. 1627–30; published 1639)

Vincent Van Gogh photo

“It is hard, terribly hard, to keep on working when one does not sell, and one literally has to pay for one's colors from what would not be too much for eating, drinking and lodgings, calculated ever so strictly. And then, besides, the models... All the same they are building State museums, and the like, for hundreds of thousands, but meanwhile, the artists can go to the dogs.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter, from Antwerp, Belgium, Dec. 1885; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 438) p. 35
1880s, 1885

Gloria Estefan photo

“[Cuban coffee is] very powerful, very sweet, and a little dangerous —- just like the people who drink it.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

Entertainment Weekly (30 July 1993)
2007, 2008

Henry Van Dyke photo
Yurii Andrukhovych photo

“If I were a nationalist I would have answered you," you say slowly and articulately, even much too slowly, much too articulately. "But what sort of nationalist am I if I'm standing here with you drinking beer?”

Якби я був націоналістом, то відповів би тобі, — кажеш повільно й виразно, аж занадто повільно, занадто виразно.
Але який з мене націоналіст, коли я отут з тобою п'ю пиво?
The Moscoviad
Source: The Moscoviad. Yuri Andrukhovych. Spuyten Duyvil, New York City. ISBN1933132523, p. 48

Ivan Turgenev photo

“"What is Bazarov?" Arkady smiled. "Would you like me to tell you, uncle, what he really is?""Please do, nephew.""He is a nihilist!""What?" asked Nikolai Petrovich, while Pavel Petrovich lifted his knife in the air with a small piece of butter on the tip and remained motionless."He is a nihilist," repeated Arkady."A nihilist," said Nikolai Petrovich. "That comes from the Latin nihil, nothing, as far as I can judge; the word must mean a man who… who recognizes nothing?""Say — who respects nothing," interposed Pavel Petrovich and lowered his knife with the butter on it."Who regards everything from the critical point of view," said Arkady."Isn't that exactly the same thing?" asked Pavel Petrovich."No, it's not the same thing. A nihilist is a person who does not bow down to any authority, who does not accept any principle on faith, however much that principle may be revered.""Well, and is that good?" asked Pavel Petrovich. "That depends, uncle dear. For some it is good, for others very bad.""Indeed. Well, I see that's not in our line. We old-fashioned people think that without principles, taken as you say on faith, one can't take a step or even breathe. Vous avez changé tout cela; may God grant you health and a general's rank, and we shall be content to look on and admire your… what was the name?""Nihilists," said Arkady, pronouncing very distinctly."Yes, there used to be Hegelists and now there are nihilists. We shall see how you will manage to exist in the empty airless void; and now ring, please, brother Nikolai, it's time for me to drink my cocoa."”

Ivan Turgenev (1818–1883) Russian writer

Source: Father and Sons (1862), Ch. 5.

Lew Rockwell photo
Craig David photo
Abdourahman A. Waberi photo
Linda McQuaig photo
Joseph Joubert photo
Roberto Clemente photo

“You know, when the season is over a lot of guys go home and eat peanuts and drink beer and they show up in spring training with a big belly. I will go home and start working on my body right away. My right shoulder is not the way it is supposed to be. I'm not going to wait until spring training and hope it is all right. I will work on it when I get home.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

Speaking during the 1971 World Series, as quoted in The Chicago Tribune by Bob Markus, reprinted in I'll Play These: From Ecstacy to Angst, A Sports Writer’s Journey https://books.google.com/books?id=sdzKAmeIoE8C&pg=PA219 (2011), p. 219
Baseball-related, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1971</big>

Sara Bareilles photo

“I say what I think
Because it's more economic than drugs or a drink”

Sara Bareilles (1979) American pop rock singer-songwriter and pianist

"Sweet As Whole"
Lyrics, Once Upon Another Time (2012)

Jimmy Kimmel photo

“We're going to give men what they really want to see on TV. Monkeys, midgets, beer drinking and women jumping on trampolines.”

Jimmy Kimmel (1967) American talk show host and comedian

On the start of The Man Show — reported in Walt Belcher (June 13, 1999) "Wise guys Corolla, Kimmel revel in new 'Man Show'", The Tampa Tribune, p. 4.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti photo
John Scalzi photo
Bhakti Tirtha Swami photo
Billy Joel photo
Natalie Merchant photo
Agatha Christie photo
Omar Khayyám photo
Anton Chekhov photo
Maxime Bernier photo

“During the final months of the campaign, as polls indicated that I had a real chance of becoming the next leader, opposition from the supply management lobby gathered speed. Radio-Canada reported on dairy farmers who were busy selling Conservative Party memberships across Quebec. A Facebook page called Les amis de la gestion de l’offre et des régions (Friends of supply management and regions) was set up and had gathered more than 10,500 members by early May. As members started receiving their ballots by mail from the party, its creator, Jacques Roy, asked them to vote for Andrew Scheer.
Andrew, along with several other candidates, was then busy touring Quebec’s agricultural belt, including my own riding of Beauce, to pick up support from these fake Conservatives, only interested in blocking my candidacy and protecting their privileges. Interestingly, one year later, most of them have not renewed their memberships and are not members of the party anymore. During these last months of the campaign, the number of members in Quebec had increased considerably, from about 6,000 to more than 16,000. In April 2018, according to my estimates, we are down to about 6,000 again.
A few days after the vote, Éric Grenier, a political analyst at the CBC, calculated that if only 66 voters in a few key ridings had voted differently, I could have won. The points system, by which every riding in the country represented 100 points regardless of the number of members they had, gave outsized importance in the vote to a handful of ridings with few members. Of course, a lot more than 66 supply management farmers voted, likely thousands of them in Quebec, Ontario, and the other provinces. I even lost my riding of Beauce by 51% to 49%, the same proportion as the national vote.
At the annual press gallery dinner in Ottawa a few days after the vote, a gala where personalities make fun of political events of the past year, Andrew was said to have gotten the most laughs when he declared: “I certainly don’t owe my leadership victory to anybody…”, stopping in mid-sentence to take a swig of 2% milk from the carton. “It’s a high quality drink and it’s affordable too.” Of course, it was so funny because everybody in the room knew that was precisely why he got elected. He did what he thought he had to do to get the most votes, and that is fair game in a democratic system. But this also helps explain why so many people are so cynical about politics, and with good reason.”

Maxime Bernier (1963) Canadian politician

page 23 in "Live or die with supply management", chapter 5 previewed April 2018 http://www.maximebernier.com/my_chapter_on_supply_management of "Doing Politics Differently: My Vision for Canada"

Bruce Springsteen photo
Boris Johnson photo
Brian W. Aldiss photo

“Relax, enjoy yourself. Have another drink. It’s patriotic to overconsume.”

Source: Greybeard (1964), Chapter 4 (p. 121)

William Joyce photo

“On this tragic day, the death of Adolf Hitler was reported - Admiral Dönitz takes over as his nominated successor. Reach Flensburg about 8. Have to drink wine for breakfast — as nothing else is available.”

William Joyce (1906–1946) British fascist and propaganda broadcaster

Peter Martland, "Lord Haw Haw: The English voice of Nazi Germany" (The National Archives, 2003), p. 301. UK National Archives KV 2/250/2, p. 55.
Diary entry, 1 May 1945.

Jean Sirmond photo

“If on my theme I rightly think,
There are five reasons why men drink,—
Good wine, a friend, because I'm dry,
Or lest I should be by and by,
Or any other reason why.”

Jean Sirmond (1589–1649) French poet

Causæ Bibendi, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). These lines are a poetic translation of a Latin epigram (erroneously ascribed to Henry Aldrich in the Biographia Britannica, second edition, vol. i. p. 131), which Menage and De la Monnoye attribute to Père Sirmond:
Si bene commemini, causæ sunt quinque bibendi:
Hospitis adventus; præsens sitis atque futura;
Et vini bonitas, et quælibet altera causa.
Menagiana, vol. i. p. 172.

Jane Austen photo

“By the bye, as I must leave off being young, I find many douceurs in being a sort of chaperon, for I am put on the sofa near the fire and can drink as much wine as I like.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Letter (1813-11-06) on ageing [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

Vincent Van Gogh photo

“I was certainly going the right way for a stroke when I left Paris. I paid for it nicely afterwards! When I stopped drinking, when I stopped smoking so much, when I began again to think instead of trying not to think - good Lord, the depression and the prostration of it! Work in these magnificent natural surroundings [of Arles ] has helped my morale.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Arles, France, 4 May 1888; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 481), p 24
1880s, 1888

“Although for food they hungered sore
He sent them drink, enough and more!”

John Barbour (1316–1395) Scottish poet

Bk. 14, line 363; p. 334.
The Brus

Dahr Jamail photo

“At the height of the sectarian bloodletting in 2006, 2007, there were over four million refugees, roughly half of them in the country, half of them who had fled the country, largely to Syria and to Jordan. To this day, according to official areas, seeking refuge. So, they’re not getting really any help whatsoever from the government. They’re living in horrible situations. And it was really a poignant thing to witness, Amy, because despite these people living in really difficult conditions, oftentimes living amongst giant piles of garbage, you walk in, and as per Iraqi Arab custom, you’re offered a drink, although even in so many of these cases people only had literally a glass of water that they could—they could offer you, despite the fact that they’re living with no government assistance and help, and basically no hope for a future, of “Where are we going to go from here? How is the situation in any way going to improve for us?” when things look so bleak, with a government in gridlock, and it looking like we’re poised for another massive increase in sectarian violence.”

Dahr Jamail (1968) American journalist

When things look so bleak, with a government in gridlock, and it looking like we’re poised for another massive increase in sectarian violence.
Ten Years Later, U.S. Has Left Iraq with Mass Displacement & Epidemic of Birth Defects, Cancers https://www.democracynow.org/2013/3/20/ten_years_later_us_has_left (March 20, 2013), '.

“Then let my skeleton soul
Writhe upward from its loam,
Drink red morning again,
And look gently home.”

Donald Davidson (1893–1968) American poet, essayist, critic and author

Redivivus

Ellen DeGeneres photo

“For a long time I thought I knew for sure who I was. I grew up in New Orleans and became a comedian. And there was everything that came along with that. The nightclubs. The smoking. The drinking. Then I turned 13.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

"What Ellen DeGeneres Knows for Sure (She Thinks)" http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/What-Ellen-DeGeneres-Knows-for-Sure-Ellens-O-Magazine-Cover, The December 2009 issue of O magazine

Franz Kafka photo
David Morrison photo
Anton Chekhov photo

“A man who doesn’t drink is not, in my opinion, fully a man.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Letter to N.A. Leikin (May 8, 1895)
Letters

Timo K. Mukka photo
Richard Rodríguez photo

“His name was William Saroyan. He was the first writer I fell in love with, boyishly in love. I was held by his unaffected voice, his sentimentality, his defiant individualism. I found myself in the stories he told… I learned from Saroyan that you do not have to live in some great city — in New York or Paris — in order to write… When I was a student at Stanford, a generation ago, the name of William Saroyan was never mentioned by any professor in the English Department. William Saroyan apparently was not considered a major American talent. Instead, we undergraduates set about the business of psychoanalyzing Hamlet and deconstructing Lolita. In my mind Saroyan belongs with John Steinbeck, a fellow small town Californian and of the same generation. He belongs with Thornton Wilder, with those writers whose aching love of America was formed by the Depression and the shadow of war. … Saroyan's prose is as plain as it is strong. He talks about the pleasure of drinking water from a hose on a summer afternoon in California's Central Valley, and he holds you with the pure line. My favorite is his novel The Human Comedy… In 1943, The Human Comedy became an MGM movie starring Mickey Rooney, but I always imagined Homer Macaulay as a darker, more soulful boy, someone who looked very much like a young William Saroyan…”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

"Time Of Our Lives" (26 May 1997) http://www.cilicia.com/armo22_william_saroyan_6.html

Plutarch photo

“Socrates said, "Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live."”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

How a Young Man ought to hear Poems, 4
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)