Quotes about drinking
page 10

Derryn Hinch photo

“You all should feel angry tonight, very angry, because yet again the legal system in this country has let you down. A court has ruled that a man who committed a ghastly crime against a little girl should walk free and unsupervised. The details are distasteful, but you should know. Hans Lester Watt abducted and raped a three-year-old girl. The 42-year-old was drunk when he took the toddler, and assulted her so badly, she needed medical attention. He said it was revenge, to get back at the innocent little girl's grandmother, whom he claimed had insulted his dead mother. Watt was jailed for 11 years. When due for release last year, the Queensland Attorney-General, understandably, applied to have him classified as a dangerous sexual offender. That meant his jail term could be extended, or at least he'd be released with a supervision order. Remember, this was a three-year-old girl. The court refused the request. The judge found the circumstances were "unique" — that Watt was not an unacceptable risk. Well, I agree it was unique — thank God the rape of a three-year-old doesn't happen often in this country. A psychiatrist said the chances of Watt re-offending were low if he did not drink alcohol, moderate if he did drink, and said the best chance of rehabilitation was if he lived in a dry Aboriginal community. The Attorney-General appealed the judge's decision. Well, yesterday, the Supreme Court turned him down, upheld the earlier ruling that let the child rapist walk free — unsupervised. My mantra for years has been "Who's looking after the children?" In my opinion, the Queensland Supreme Court certainly is not — this decision was a travesty.”

Derryn Hinch (1944) New Zealand–Australian media personality

Today Tonight, 24 April 2013.

Phil Brooks photo

“I've come out here tonight to challenge you… challenge you, the WWE Universe, into seeing things my way and to learn how to just say "no." See, because the people who cheer for Jeff Hardy are just slaves to the vices associated with his (with quote fingers) "living in the moment." I feel bad for you, I really do. You walk around almost blind and you wear your prescriptions proudly on your sleeves like they were badges of honor. What was it the doctor told you? 'Just take one… every four hours,' right? Aside from myself, there's not a person in this arena who hasn't abused prescription medication or taken a recreational drug. And I know, trust me, it's hard being straight-edge, it's hard to live a straight-edge lifestyle. It's extremely difficult to be me, but what concerns me now is that none of you realize how much more difficult it is to live the life… that you all live. I'm positive nobody in here takes into account the long-term consequences of alcohol on your liver. (Smattering of cheers from audience) See, and you cheer that. That's nothing to cheer. You drink because it's fun, right? (Audience cheers a little louder) Eventually, it's not gonna be fun anymore when it spirals out of control and its no longer… it's no longer fun. Sooner or later, you're just drinking to feel normal. And then there's the smokers. You know, I don't know what's more disgusting–is watching a smoker pollute his/her lungs with over 4,000 foreign chemicals, or having to listen to the smoker convince themselves that they can quit whenever they want to. It's… it's hard to quit, I know, it takes a very strong person to quit, but an even stronger person never would've started smoking in the first place. (Audience boos and chants "Hardy") I didn't want to come out here and be the bearer of bad news, but let's face facts: chances are pretty slim that any of you here will ever get the monkey off your back. You'll never be able to pry the cigarette from your lips, or find the self-control to pour your drink from your glass, or the self-respect to take the pill out of your mouth. See, it starts, and it can't happen without learning how to say "no" to temptation, and that's why I'm out here. I'm out here to challenge you before it's too late. Please, learn how to say "no" to temptation, learn how to say "no" to your vices, learn how to control yourself.”

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

July 24, 2009
Friday Night SmackDown

James Boswell photo

“Now, there is a genuine social justice which proceeds not from the principle of equality, but from the principle: Suum cuique — to each his own. It is true that to deprive the workman of his just wage is not only a sin, but a sin that cries to heaven for vengeance. When one hinders social advance by putting barriers in the way of the diligent and the talented, one not only commits a personal injustice, but damages the common good of the whole nation, which always requires a genuine elite of ability and the contribution of extraordinary brainpower in every walk of life. And it would be socially unjust if a few individuals or certain groups had so much material wealth that, in consequence of this concentration of property and income, other classes had to live not only in povery, but in misery. Whoever lives in real abundance has a Christian duty to assist those living in wrechedness. Before we proceed, however, let us affirm that the notion of misery is different from that of poverty. Péguy has already drawn the distinction between pauvreté and misère. To live in misery means to suffer genuine physical privation: to know cold and hunger, to have no proper dwelling, to be dressed in rags, to be unable to secure medical attention. The poor, by contrast, have the necessities of life, but scarcely any more. They can borrow books, no doubt, but cannot buy them; they can hear music on the radio, but cannot afford a ticket to a concert; they cannot indulge in little extras of food and drink, but should, by self-discipline, be able to save a little. The poor have, therefore, the normal material preconditions for happiness — unless plagued by acquisitiveness or even envy, which has become a political force in the same measure as people have lost their faith. The fact that there are happy poor (alongside unhappy rich people) is beside the point. Demagogues know how to stir up terrible and murderous unrest even among the happy poor, as has been demonstrated clearly by the history of the left from Marat to Marx to Lenin to Hitler.”

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (1909–1999) Austrian noble and political theorist

Pgs 53-54
The Timeless Christian (1969)

George Washington Plunkitt photo
Kevin Barry photo

“Art is a hideously painful business, you know. Pity me! Or at least buy me a drink.”

Kevin Barry (1902–1920) 18 year old medical student and Irish republican, executed by Britain.

Interview with Kevin Barry (c. 2012)

Ed Harcourt photo

“I drink alot of wine when I'am alone.”

Ed Harcourt (1977) British musician

Apple Of My Eye

John F. Kennedy photo

“I want to drink a cup of tea to all those Kennedys who went and all those Kennedys who stayed.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

While visiting his ancestral homestead in Wexford, as quoted in BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/27/newsid_4461000/4461115.stm
1963

Maimónides photo
Democritus photo
William S. Burroughs photo
Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo
Washington Irving photo

“They who drink beer will think beer.”

"Stratford-on-Avon".
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon (1819–1820)

William Golding photo
Joan Slonczewski photo
Denise Levertov photo

“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

Samuel Johnson photo

“Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by every means but drinking.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

1776 http://books.google.com/books?id=fcIIAAAAQAAJ&q=%22Melancholy+indeed+should+be+diverted+by+every+means+but+drinking%22&pg=PA6#v=onepage
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)

Johnny Marr photo

“Shykh Nuruddin Mubarak Ghaznavi was the most important disciple of Shykh Shihabuddin Suhrawardi, founder of the second most important sufi silsila after the Chishtiyya, who died in Baghdad in 1235 AD. Ghaznavi had come and settled down in India where he passed away in 1234-35 AD. He served as Shykh-ul-Islam in the reign of Shamsuddin Iltutmish (AD 1210-1236), and propounded the doctrine of Din Panahi. Barani quotes the first principle of this doctrine as follows in his Tarikh-i-Firuzshahi. “The kings should protect the religion of Islam with sincere faith… And kings will not be able to perform the duty of protecting the Faith unless, for the sake of God and the Prophet’s creed, they overthrow and uproot kufr and kafiri (infidelity), shirk (setting partners to God) and the worship of idols. But if the total uprooting of idolatry is not possible owing to the firm roots of kufr and the large number of kafirs and mushriks (infidels and idolaters), the kings should at least strive to insult, disgrace, dishonour and defame the mushrik and idol-worshipping Hindus, who are the worst enemies of God and the Prophet. The symptom of the kings being the protectors of religion is this:- When they see a Hindu, their eyes grow red and they wish to bury him alive; they also desire to completely uproot the Brahmans, who are the leaders of kufr and shirk and owning to whom kufr and shirk are spread and the commandments of kufr are enforced… Owing to the fear and terror of the kings of Islam, not a single enemy of God and the Prophet can drink water that is sweet or stretch his legs on his bed and go to sleep in peace.””

Ziauddin Barani (1285–1357) Indian Muslim historian and political thinker (1285–1357)

Quoted from Goel, Sita Ram (2001). The story of Islamic imperialism in India. ISBN 9788185990231
Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi

Jaani Peuhu photo

“Today we play guitar. We shall not speak or write. We just play and maybe drink some blood of virgins.”

Jaani Peuhu (1978) Finnish musician

Iconcrash: Enochian Devices Blog, 2007-12-14 http://www.eurobands.us/2007/04/06/iconcrash-506,

Jack London photo
Pythagoras photo

“By the air which I breathe, and by the water which I drink, I will not endure to be blamed on account of this discourse.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

As reported by Heraclides Ponticus (c. 360 BC), and Diogenes Laërtius, in Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, "Pythagoras", Sect. 6, in the translation of C. D. Yonge (1853)

George Saintsbury photo
Henry David Thoreau photo
Mike Lange photo

“Buy Sam a drink and get his dog one, too!”

Mike Lange (1948) Canadian sportscaster

Quoted in Keith Barnes, "Lange's inimitable style makes him a broadcast legend", Tribune-Review (2008-01-20)

Nassim Nicholas Taleb photo
Gulzarilal Nanda photo
Joseph Brotherton photo

“The Eating and Drinking Reformation is at the foundation of all the good that would be produced in society.”

Joseph Brotherton (1783–1857) British politician

Quoted in Strength and Diet https://books.google.it/books?id=uexsAAAAMAAJ by Francis Albert Rollo Russell (London: Longmans, Green, & Co, 1905), p. 2.

Phil Brooks photo

“[to Del Rio] If you say because it's your destiny, I swear to Jebus, I'm gonna start drinking.”

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

December 5, 2011
WWE Raw

Wilfred Thesiger photo
David Draiman photo
Naomi Klein photo
Maimónides photo
Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon photo
T. E. Lawrence photo
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero photo

“Discouraging smoking and drinking is a left ideal.”

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (1960) Former Prime Minister of Spain

3rd September 2005, in a meeting of the PSOE federal committee whilst tabling a motion to increase tax on alcohol and cigarettes to finance health spending.
As President, 2005
Source: Psoe.es http://www.psoe.es/ambito/saladeprensa/docs/index.do?action=View&id=58918 (Spanish)

Bill Engvall photo
Joseph Smith, Jr. photo
Fisher Ames photo
Geoffrey of Monmouth photo

“She approached the king, and making a low courtesy, said to him, "Lauerd king wacht heil!" The king, at the sight of the lady's face, was on a sudden both surprised and inflamed with her beauty; and calling on his interpreter, asked him what she said, and what answer he should make her. "She called you, 'Lord king,'" said the interpreter, "and offered to drink your health. Your answer to her must be, Drinc heil!"”
Accedens deinde proprius rege flexis genibus dixit. "Lauerd King, wassheil." At ille visa facie puelle admiratus est tantum eius decorum et incalvit. Denique interrorogavit interpretem suum quid dixerat puella, et quid ei respondere deberet. Cui interpres dixit, "Vocavit te dominum regem et vocabulo salutacionis honoravit. Quid autem respondere debes est 'drincheil.'"

Accedens deinde proprius rege flexis genibus dixit. "Lauerd King, wassheil."
At ille visa facie puelle admiratus est tantum eius decorum et incalvit. Denique interrorogavit interpretem suum quid dixerat puella, et quid ei respondere deberet. Cui interpres dixit, "Vocavit te dominum regem et vocabulo salutacionis honoravit. Quid autem respondere debes est 'drincheil.'"
Bk. 6, ch. 12; p. 186.
Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain)

Joni Mitchell photo
Jerome K. Jerome photo

“I can understand the ignorant masses loving to soak themselves in drink—oh, yes, it's very shocking that they should, of course—very shocking to us who live in cozy homes, with all the graces and pleasures of life around us, that the dwellers in damp cellars and windy attics should creep from their dens of misery into the warmth and glare of the public-house bar, and seek to float for a brief space away from their dull world upon a Lethe stream of gin. But think, before you hold up your hands in horror at their ill-living, what "life" for these wretched creatures really means. Picture the squalid misery of their brutish existence, dragged on from year to year in the narrow, noisome room where, huddled like vermin in sewers, they welter, and sicken, and sleep; where dirt-grimed children scream and fight and sluttish, shrill-voiced women cuff, and curse, and nag; where the street outside teems with roaring filth and the house around is a bedlam of riot and stench. Think what a sapless stick this fair flower of life must be to them, devoid of mind and soul. The horse in his stall scents the sweet hay and munches the ripe corn contentedly. The watch-dog in his kennel blinks at the grateful sun, dreams of a glorious chase over the dewy fields, and wakes with a yelp of gladness to greet a caressing hand. But the clod-like life of these human logs never knows one ray of light. From the hour when they crawl from their comfortless bed to the hour when they lounge back into it again they never live one moment of real life. Recreation, amusement, companionship, they know not the meaning of. Joy, sorrow, laughter, tears, love, friendship, longing, despair, are idle words to them. From the day when their baby eyes first look out upon their sordid world to the day when, with an oath, they close them forever and their bones are shoveled out of sight, they never warm to one touch of human sympathy, never thrill to a single thought, never start to a single hope. In the name of the God of mercy; let them pour the maddening liquor down their throats and feel for one brief moment that they live!”

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

George Carlin photo
George Herbert photo

“619. You may bring a horse to the river, but he will drinke when and what he pleaseth.”

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

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

Anton Chekhov photo
Stanley Holloway photo
Norman Angell photo
Daniel Johns photo

“The water out of the tap is very hard to drink”

Daniel Johns (1979) Australian musician

Tomorrow
Song lyrics, Frogstomp (1995)

Ben Gibbard photo
Leonard Cohen photo

“We're drinking and we're dancing
but there's nothing really happening.
The place is dead as Heaven on a Saturday night.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

"Closing Time"
The Future (1992)

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton photo
Jack Kerouac photo
Richard Steele photo

“A little in drink, but at all times yr faithful husband.”

Richard Steele (1672–1729) British politician

27 September 1708
Letters to His Wife (1707-1712)

Anthony Burgess photo
Tucker Max photo
Anne Brontë photo

“Apart from cheese and tulips, the main product of the country is advocaat, a drink made from lawyers.”

Alan Coren (1938–2007) humorist and writer from the United Kingdom

"All You Need To Know About Europe", Netherlands.
The Sanity Inspector (1974)

“[Bin Laden has] already said publicly that you can have all the oil you want. I can‘t drink it. We‘re going to sell it to you at a marketplace.”

Michael Scheuer (1952) American counterterrorism analyst

Hardball with Chris Matthews, November 16 2004
2000s

Walter Scott photo

“Pax vobiscum will answer all queries. If you go or come, eat or drink, bless or ban, Pax vobiscum carries you through it all. It is as useful to a friar as a broom-stick to a witch, or a wand to a conjuror.”

Source: Ivanhoe (1819), Ch. 26, Wamba explaining to Cedric how to get away with impersonating a priest. Pax vobiscum means "peace be with you".

George Chapman photo
Miguel de Cervantes photo
Mahatma Gandhi photo

“If I had power and could legislate, I should certainly stop all proselytizing. For Hindu households, the advent of a missionary has meant the disruption of the family, coming in the wake of change of dress, manners, language, food and drink.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

‘Harijan’, English weekly, Poona, founded by M.K. Gandhi, dated May 11, 1935
1930s

Suzanne Vega photo

“I open up the paper,
there's the story of an actor
who had died while he was drinking,
it was no one I had heard of.”

Suzanne Vega (1959) American singer

Tom's Diner
Solitude Standing (1987)

Tao Yuanming photo

“Let us drink and enjoy together the wine you have brought:
For my course is set and cannot now be altered.”

Tao Yuanming (365–427) Chinese poet

"In the quiet of the morning I heard a knock at my door"
Translated by Arthur Waley

James Russell Lowell photo

“Of my merit
On thet pint you yourself may jedge;
All is, I never drink no sperit,
Nor I haint never signed no pledge.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

No. 7
The Biglow Papers (1848–1866), Series I (1848)

Khalil Gibran photo
Li Bai photo

“I sat drinking and did not notice the dusk,
Till falling petals filled the folds of my dress.”

"Self-Abandonment" ( 自遣 http://www.chinese-poems.com/lb14t.html), as translated by Arthur Waley (1919)

Cristoforo Colombo photo
Winston S. Churchill photo

“When I was a young subaltern in the South African War, the water was not fit to drink. To make it palatable we had to put a bit of whiskey in it. By diligent effort I learned to like it.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Aboard the Presidential train during the journey to Fulton, Missouri (March 4, 1946); quoted in Conflict and Crisis by Robert Donovan, University of Missouri Press (1996), p. 190 ISBN 082621066X
Post-war years (1945–1955)

Bill Maher photo

“It would not be too much to say that if all drinking of fermented liquors could be done away, crime of every kind would fall to a fourth of its present amount, and the whole tone of moral feeling in the lower order might be indefinitely raised.”

Charles Buxton (1823–1871) English brewer, philanthropist, writer and politician

Reported to be in his pamphlet How to Stop Drunkenness in Grappling with the Monster http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13509/13509.txt by T. S. Arthur
Attributed

George Galloway photo
Doug Stanhope photo
Conor Oberst photo
Horatio Nelson photo

“Drink, drink. Fan, fan. Rub, rub.”

Horatio Nelson (1758–1805) Royal Navy Admiral

In his dying hours, Nelson was attended by his chaplain, Alexander Scott; his steward, Chevalier; and the purser, Walter Burke. Their accounts have been available to Nelson's modern biographers. This was a request to alleviate his symptoms of thirst, heat, and the pains of his wounds, as quoted in Horatio Nelson (1987) by Tom Pocock, p. 331
The Battle of Trafalgar (1805)

Michael Elmore-Meegan photo
Nur Muhammad Taraki photo

“You are the one who should quit! Because of drink and old age you have taken leave of your senses.”

Nur Muhammad Taraki (1917–1979) Prime Minister of Afghanistan

Hafizullah Amin, as quoted in Nabi Misdaq (2006) Afghanistan: Political Frailty and External Interference, page 125.
About

Sarah Vowell photo
Joel Fuhrman photo
Anthony Burgess photo

“You drink wine, you have foreskins. These things have been observed.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, Napoleon Symphony (1974)

Anthony Bourdain photo
Catherine the Great photo

“I turned to Brecht and asked him why, if he felt the way he did about Jerome and the other American Communists, he kept on collaborating with them, particularly in view of their apparent approval or indifference to what was happening in the Soviet Union. […] Brecht shrugged his shoulders and kept on making invidious remarks about the American Communist Party and asserted that only the Soviet Union and its Communist Party mattered. […] But I argued… it was the Kremlin and above all Stalin himself who were responsible for the arrest and imprisonment of the opposition and their dependents. It was at this point that he said in words I have never forgotten, 'As for them, the more innocent they are, the more they deserve to be shot.' I was so taken aback that I thought I had misheard him. 'What are you saying?' I asked. He calmly repeated himself, 'The more innocent they are, the more they deserve to be shot.' […] I was stunned by his words. 'Why? Why?' I exclaimed. All he did was smile at me in a nervous sort of way. I waited, but he said nothing after I repeated my question. I got up, went into the next room, and fetched his hat and coat. When I returned, he was still sitting in his chair, holding a drink in his hand. When he saw me with his hat and coat, he looked surprised. He put his glass down, rose, and with a sickly smile took his hat and coat and left. Neither of us said a word. I never saw him again.”

Sidney Hook (1902–1989) American philosopher

Out of Step (1985)

Victor Villaseñor photo
Jerome K. Jerome photo

“If you would taste love, drink of the pure stream that youth pours out at your feet. Do not wait till it has become a muddy river before you stoop to catch its waves.”

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)
Context: It is well, dear ladies, for us old sinners that you study only books. Did you read mankind, you would know that the lad's shy stammering tells a truer tale than our bold eloquence. A boy's love comes from a full heart; a man's is more often the result of a full stomach. Indeed, a man's sluggish current may not be called love, compared with the rushing fountain that wells up when a boy's heart is struck with the heavenly rod. If you would taste love, drink of the pure stream that youth pours out at your feet. Do not wait till it has become a muddy river before you stoop to catch its waves.

David Dixon Porter photo
Alejandro Fernández photo
Catherine the Great photo

“From the age of ten, Peter III was partial to drink.”

Catherine the Great (1729–1796) Empress of Russia

Memoirs

Rich Mullins photo