“Fill ev'ry glass, for wine inspires us,
And fires us
With courage, love and joy.
Women and wine should life employ.
Is there ought else on earth desirous?”
Matt, Act II, sc. i, air 19
The Beggar's Opera (1728)
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John Gay 56
English poet and playwright 1685–1732Related quotes
“Wine is constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy.”
The Lark Ascending http://www.ev90481.dial.pipex.com/Meredith/lark_ascending.htm, l. 65-70 (1881).
“He who loves not wine, women and song remains a fool his whole life long.”
Variant: He who loves not Wine, Women and Song
Remains a fool his whole life long
“Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, sermons and soda water the day after.”
“In former days I wanted wine to drink;
The wine this morning fills the cup in vain.”
Second of three poems ("Three Dirges") written by Tao Yuanming in 427, the same year he died at the age of 63, and often read as poems written for his own funeral.
John Minford and Joseph S. M. Lau (eds.), Classical Chinese Literature: An Anthology of Translations (2000), p. 513
Context: In former days I wanted wine to drink;
The wine this morning fills the cup in vain.
I see the spring mead with its floating foam,
And wonder when to taste of it again.
The feast before me lavishly is spread,
My relatives and friends beside me cry.
I wish to speak but lips can shape no voice,
I wish to see but light has left my eye.
I slept of old within the lofty hall,
Amidst wild weeds to rest I now descend.
When once I pass beyond the city gate
I shall return to darkness without end.
No. 163: On his discovery of Finnish language, in a letter to W. H. Auden (1955)
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1981)
“Sir, I did not count your glasses of wine, why should you number up my cups of tea?”
Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson, Vol 2