Archive

Quotes

Alcohol is the monarch of liquids.

—Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, 1825

I 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, 1842

My advice to people today is as follows: if you take the game of life seriously, if you take your nervous system seriously, if you take your sense organs seriously, if you take the energy process seriously, you must turn on, tune in, and drop out.

—Timothy Leary, 1966

I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too.

—Mitch Hedberg, 1999

As he brews, so shall he drink.

—Ben Jonson, 1598

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

—Ernest Hemingway, 1935

There 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, 1969

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.

—Edmund Burke, 1795

People who’ve drunk neat wine don’t care a damn.

—Hipponax, c. 550 BC

Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes.

—William James, 1902

Give me chastity and continence, but not just now.

—Saint Augustine, 397

Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences.

—Gore Vidal, 1981

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.

—Oliver Sacks, 2012