Archive

Quotes

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

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

—Athenaeus, c. 230

Drunkenness is the very sepulcher / Of man’s wit and his discretion.

—Geoffrey Chaucer, c. 1390

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

—Samuel Johnson, 1779

A true German can’t stand the French, / Yet willingly he drinks their wines.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1832

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

The drunken man is a living corpse.

—St. John Chrysostom, c. 390

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

—Epicurus, c. 300 BC

An old man is twice a child, and so is a drunken man.

—Plato, c. 360 BC

Thanks be to God: since my leaving drinking of wine, I do find myself much better and do mind my business better, and do spend less money, and less time lost in idle company.

—Samuel Pepys, 1662

Moderation in all things.

—Terence, 166 BC

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

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

—Benjamin Franklin, 1749