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, 1969Quotes
Modern life is often a mechanical oppression, and liquor is the only mechanical relief.
—Ernest Hemingway, 1935The 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, 1580Drink does not drown care but waters it, and makes it grow faster.
—Benjamin Franklin, 1749As far as I can see, the history of experimental art in the twentieth century is intimately bound up with the experience of intoxification.
—Will Self, 1994A true German can’t stand the French, / Yet willingly he drinks their wines.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1832Under 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, 1795Whoever gulps down wine as a horse gulps down water is called a Scythian.
—Athenaeus, c. 230Drinking with women is as unnatural as scolding with ’em.
—William Wycherley, 1675If you were to ask me if I’d ever had the bad luck to miss my daily cocktail, I’d have to say that I doubt it; where certain things are concerned, I plan ahead.
—Luis Buñuel, 1983I 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, 1842Give me chastity and continence, but not just now.
—Saint Augustine, 397Drink today and drown all sorrow; / You shall perhaps not do it tomorrow.
—John Fletcher, 1625