Drunkenness Quotes

• Of all ebriosity, who does not prefer to be intoxicated by the air he breathes?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Air, Doe, Breathe

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.129, Simon and Schuster

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• Drunkenness is nothing but voluntary madness.

  Seneca the Younger

  Drinking, Alcohol, Liquor Funny

  "Moral Letters to Lucilius (Letter LXXXIII)". Book by Seneca the Younger, 1920.

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• Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes. Not through mere perversity do men run after it.

  William James

  Running, Men, Sobriety

  1902 The Varieties of Religious Experience,'Mysticism'.

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• Now I am sober and there's only the hangover and the memory of love.

  Rumi

  Memories, Hangover, Sober

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• What does drunkenness accomplish? It discloses secrets, it ratifies hopes, and urges even the unarmed to battle.

  Horace

  Secret, Battle, Doe

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• Drunkenness is temporary suicide.

  Bertrand Russell

  Suicide, Drinking, Alcohol

  "The Conquest of Happiness". Book by Bertrand Russell, 1930.

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• Thirst teaches all animals to drink, but drunkenness belongs only to man.

  Henry Fielding

  Animal, Men, Drink

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• Drunkenness does not create vice; it merely brings it into view.

  Seneca the Younger

  Beer, Views, Alcohol

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• If merely 'feeling good' could decide, drunkenness would be the supremely valid human experience.

  William James

  Feel Good, Alcohol, Feelings

  Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) lecture 1, p. 16

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• If the storm within gets too loud, I take a glass too much to stun myself.

  Vincent Van Gogh

  Glasses, Storm, Too Much

  Vincent van Gogh (1959). “Complete Letters: With Reproductions of All the Drawings in the Correspondence”

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• Unrecognized alcoholism is the ruling pathology among writers and intellectuals.

  Diana Trilling

  Pathology, Ruling, Alcoholism

  Diana Trilling (1993). “The Beginning of the Journey: The Marriage of Diana and Lionel Trilling”, Harcourt

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• The few bad poems which occasionally are created during abstinence are of no great interest.

  Wilhelm Reich

  Artistic, Abstinence, Interest

  Wilhelm Reich (1969). “The sexual revolution: toward a self-governing character structure”

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• When all is said and done, no literature can outdo the cynicism of real life; you won't intoxicate with one glass someone who has already drunk up a whole barrel.

  Anton Chekhov

  Real, Glasses, Drunk

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• Good days are to be gathered like grapes, to be trodden and bottled into wine and kept for age to sip at ease beside the fire. If the traveler has vintaged well, he need trouble to wander no longer; the ruby moments glow in his glass at will.

  Freya Stark

  Good Day, Wine, Fire

  Freya Stark (2013). “Perseus In The Wind: A Life of Travel”, p.147, Tauris Parke Paperbacks

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• The artist should be intoxicated with the idea of the thing he wants to express.

  Robert Henri

  Artist, Ideas, Want

  Robert Henri (1960). “The art spirit”, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

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• Prohibition may be a disputed theory, but none can say that it doesn't hold water.

  Thomas Lansing Masson

  Water, May, Prohibition

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• Who could have foretold, from the structure of the brain, that wine could derange its functions?

  Hippocrates

  Wine, Brain, Structure

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• While I was an addict, I didn't write anything. I didn't have the attention span or the will.

  David Crosby

  Writing, Attention, Addict

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• A tavern chair is the throne of human felicity.

  Samuel Johnson

  Thrones, Taverns, Chairs

  Samuel Johnson (1977). “Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.13, Univ of California Press

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• The attempt to make the consumption of beer criminal is as silly and as futile as if you passed a law to send a man to jail for eating cucumber salad.

  Stephen Leacock

  Silly, Beer, Men

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• Drinking is an art, not a sport. You make it a sport, you're dead in the water, you lose everything. It'll kill you, I tell you.

  Michael Moriarty

  Sports, Art, Drinking

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• Have you ever wondered why the slang terms for intoxication are so demolition-oriented? Stoned, smashed, hammered. It's because they're talking about the Ego. It's the Ego that gets blasted, waxed, plastered.

  Steven Pressfield

  Talking, Ego, Demolition

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• Before the Roman came to Rye or out to severn strode, / The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Rolling, Made, Drunkards

  'The Rolling English Road' (1914)

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• The whisky bears a grudge against the decanter.

  Samuel Beckett

  Bears, Grudge, Whisky

  Samuel Beckett (1931). “Proust”

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• Quart of whiskey a day for months working hard on a long poem. Wife hiding bottles, myself hiding bottles. Murderous and suicidal. Many hospitalizations, many alibis.

  James Taylor

  Suicidal, Long, Wife

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