For years, our good friend Winfried had a sign hanging in his office that read, “Everyone should believe in something — I believe I’ll have another beer.”
I was thinking about that the other day, and it occurs to me that a lot of famous, or well-known people have been given credit for quotes about alcohol. Winston Churchill is credited with a number of fairly famous quotes, like “My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them.”
So alcohol has been on the minds of lots of famous people, and the subject of many parables and even has its place in the Bible.
Here’s some examples….
Good wine is a good familiar creature if it be well used ~ William Shakespeare (from Othello)
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy ~ Benjamin Franklin
Wine is a living liquid containing no preservatives ~ Julia Child
You are not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on ~ Dean Martin
I’m not a heavy drinker; I can sometimes go for hours without touching a drop ~ Noël Coward
Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut. ~ Ernest Hemingway
Wine is bottled poetry ~ Robert Louis Stevenson
What contemptible scoundrel has stolen the cork to my lunch? ~ W. C. Fields
Good company, good wine, good welcome, can make good people. ~ William Shakespeare (Henry Viii)
Good wine is a necessity of life for me ~ Thomas Jefferson
In victory, you deserve champagne; in defeat, you need it. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte
When I read about the evils of drink, I gave up reading ~ Henny Youngman
Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough ~ Mark Twain
Alcohol may be man’s worst enemy, but the Bible says love your enemy ~ Frank Sinatra
Wine is sunlight, held together by water ~ Galileo
He was a wise man who invented beer ~ Plato
The water was not fit to drink. To make it palatable, we had to add whiskey. By diligent effort, I learned to like it. ~ Winston churchill
An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools. ~ Ernest Hemingway
Work is the curse of the drinking classes ~ Oscar Wilde
There can be nothing more frequent than an occasional drink ~ Oscar Wilde
Man, being reasonable, must get drunk; the best of life is but intoxication ~ Lord Byron
There can’t be good living where there is not good drinking ~ Benjamin Franklin
It is a fair wind that blew men to the ale ~ Washington Irving
Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, sermons and soda water the day after ~ Lord Byron
Milk is for babies. When you grow up you have to drink beer ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger
Drinking is a way of ending the day ~ Ernest Hemingway
And a lot of well-known, and not so well-known, provers involve alcohol….
It is well to remember that there are five reasons for drinking: the arrival of a friend, one’s present or future thirst, the excellence of the wine, or any other reason. ~ Latin Proverb
What whiskey will not cure, there is no cure for ~ Irish Proverb
Do not cease to drink beer, to eat, to intoxicate thyself, to make love, and to celebrate the good days. ~ Ancient Egyptian proverb
What soberness conceals, drunkenness reveals ~ Proverb
But the greatest love — the lover above all loves — Even greater than that of a mother, is the tender, passionate, undying love, of one beer-drunken slob for another ~ Irish Proverb
And even the Bible talks about drinking….
Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more ~ Proverbs 31:6
So it seems appropriate that tomorrow, we all raise our glass and give a cheer — to the Chinese New Year!
— 30 —