Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences.
—Gore Vidal, 1981Quotes
Give me chastity and continence, but not just now.
—Saint Augustine, 397Drugs, cataplasms, and whiskey are stupid substitutes for the dignity and potency of divine mind and its efficacy to heal.
—Mary Baker Eddy, 1908Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times and in all countries, called in some physical aid to their moral consolations—wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco.
—Edmund Burke, 1795There was a great deal of drinking among us but little drunkenness. We all seemed to feel that Prohibition was a personal affront and that we had a moral duty to undermine it.
—Elizabeth Anderson, 1969I mean, why on earth (outside sickness and hangovers) aren’t people continually drunk? I want ecstasy of the mind all the time.
—Jack Kerouac, 1957That which the sober man keeps in his breast, the drunken man lets out at the lips. Astute people, when they want to ascertain a man’s true character, make him drunk.
—Martin Luther, 1569I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too.
—Mitch Hedberg, 1999Life isn’t all beer and skittles, but beer and skittles, or something better of the same sort, must form a good part of every Englishman’s education.
—Thomas Hughes, 1857The pleasure we hold in esteem for the course of our lives ought to have a greater share of our time dedicated to it; we should refuse no occasion nor omit any opportunity of drinking, and always have it in our minds.
—Michel de Montaigne, 1580I have sometimes thought that the laws ought not to punish those actions of evil which are committed when the senses are steeped in intoxication.
—Walt Whitman, 1842Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes.
—William James, 1902A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated has not the art of getting drunk.
—Samuel Johnson, 1779