Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need—a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.

Abstainer, n. A weak man who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.

Drinking with women is as unnatural as scolding with ’em.

Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.

As far as I can see, the history of experimental art in the twentieth century is intimately bound up with the experience of intoxification.

To live on a day-to-day basis is insufficient for human beings; we need to transcend, transport, escape; we need meaning, understanding, and explanation.

There are two things that will be believed of any man whatsoever, and one of them is that he has taken to drink.

It is impossible to live pleasurably without living wisely, well, and justly, and impossible to live wisely, well, and justly without living pleasurably.

Modern life is often a mechanical oppression, and liquor is the only mechanical relief.

Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences.

A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated has not the art of getting drunk.

Under 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.

Give me chastity and continence, but not just now.