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Quotes

As he brews, so shall he drink.

—Ben Jonson, 1598

Drink does not drown care but waters it, and makes it grow faster.

—Benjamin Franklin, 1749

Whoever gulps down wine as a horse gulps down water is called a Scythian.

—Athenaeus, c. 230

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

—Ernest Hemingway, 1935

The 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, 1580

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.

—Jerome K. Jerome, 1889

Life 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, 1857

I am sure of this: that if everybody was to drink their bottle a day, there would not be half the disorders in the world there are now.

—Jane Austen, c. 1798

Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.

—Herman Melville, 1851

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

Give me chastity and continence, but not just now.

—Saint Augustine, 397

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

Sex and drugs and rock and roll.

—Ian Dury, 1977