- WIST is my personal collection of quotations, curated for thought, amusement, turn of phrase, historical significance, or sometimes just (often-unintentional) irony. Please feel free to browse and borrow.
- 16,907 quotes and counting ...
Quote Search
Authors
Topic Cloud
action age America belief books change character courage death democracy education ego evil faith fear freedom future God government happiness history honesty humanity integrity justice leadership liberty life love morality perspective politics poverty power religion science society success truth tyranny virtue war wealth wisdom writing- I've been adding topics/tags since 2014, so not all quotes have been given one. Full topic list.
WISTish
- * Visual quotes (graphics, memes) only
Admin
Popular Quotables
- “Wealth and Poverty,” speech, National… (5,843)
- “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (5,691)
- Agamemnon, ll. 175-183 [tr. Johnston (2007)] (5,482)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,837)
- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (4,545)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (3,738)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (3,728)
- “Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of… (3,582)
- “The Historian as Participant,” Daedalus… (3,027)
- “Hallowed Ground” (1825) (2,992)
Most Quoted Authors
Author Cloud
Adams, John • Bacon, Francis • Bible • Bierce, Ambrose • Billings, Josh • Butcher, Jim • Chesterton, Gilbert Keith • Churchill, Winston • Einstein, Albert • Eisenhower, Dwight David • Emerson, Ralph Waldo • Franklin, Benjamin • Fuller, Thomas (1654) • Gaiman, Neil • Galbraith, John Kenneth • Gandhi, Mohandas • Goethe, Johann von • Hazlitt, William • Heinlein, Robert A. • Hoffer, Eric • Huxley, Aldous • Ingersoll, Robert Green • James, William • Jefferson, Thomas • Johnson, Lyndon • Johnson, Samuel • Kennedy, John F. • King, Martin Luther • La Rochefoucauld, Francois • Lewis, C.S. • Lincoln, Abraham • Mencken, H.L. • Orwell, George • Pratchett, Terry • Roosevelt, Eleanor • Roosevelt, Theodore • Russell, Bertrand • Seneca the Younger • Shakespeare, William • Shaw, George Bernard • Stevenson, Adlai • Stevenson, Robert Louis • Twain, Mark • Watterson, Bill • Wilde, Oscar- Only the 45 most quoted authors are shown above. Full author list.
Recent Feedback
- 24-Feb-20 - "Pushkin and Pugachev [Пушкин и Пугачев]" (1937) | WIST on (Attributed).
- 22-Feb-20 - Defending Health Freedom: from informed-consent to implied consent – Nature of Healing on Letter to Henry L. Sprague (26 Jan 1900).
- 12-Feb-20 - "What I Believe," The Nation (16 Jul 1938) | WIST on Letter to Bp. Mandell Creighton (3 Apr 1887).
- 12-Feb-20 - "Equality," The Spectator (27 Aug 1943) | WIST on “On Slavery and Democracy” (fragment) (1858?).
- 3-Feb-20 - "On Three Ways of Writing for Children," lecture, Library Association Bournemouth Conference (29 Apr - 2 May 1952) | WIST on 1 Corinthians 13:11 [KJV].
- 29-Jan-20 - Dave on Authors.
Quotations about drinking
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
Well, between Scotch and nothin’, I suppose I’d take Scotch. It’s the nearest thing to good moonshine I can find.
William Faulkner (1897-1962) American novelist
Quoted in The National Observer (3 Feb 1964)
At least one source breaks this into two quotations, with the second sentence comparing bourbon to moonshine.
There is something about a Martini,
A tingle remarkably pleasant;
A yellow, a mellow Martini;
I wish I had one at present.
There is something about a Martini,
Ere the dining and dancing begin,
And to tell you the truth,
It is not the vermouth —
I think that perhaps it’s the gin.
Ogden Nash (1902-1971) American poet
“A Drink with Something In It,” The Primrose Path (1935)
(Source)
Well, with one martini ah feel bigger, wiser, taller, and with two it goes to the superlative, and ah feel biggest, wisest, tallest, and with three there ain’t no holdin’ me.
William Faulkner (1897-1962) American novelist
(Attributed)
(Source)
As quoted in Lauren Bacall, By Myself (1978). Often paraphrased or rendered back into standard English, e.g., "When I have one martini, I feel bigger, wiser, taller. When I have a second, I feel superlative. When I have more, there's no holding me."
The Martini is to middle- and upper-class American society what peyote is to the Yaqui Indians: a sacred rite that affirms tribal identity, encourages fanciful thought and —
let’s be honest here — delivers a whoppingly nice high.Barnaby Conrad III (b. 1952) American author, artist, editor
“Martini Madness,” Cigar Aficionado (Spring 1996)
(Source)
There are two reasons for drinking: one is, when you are thirsty, to cure it; the other, when you are not thirsty, to prevent it. The first is obvious, mechanical, and plebeian; the second is most refined, abstract, prospicient, and canonical. I drink by anticipation of thirst that may be. Prevention is better than cure.
Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866) English novelist, satirist, poet, merchant
Melincourt, ch. 16 (1817)
(Source)
Alcohol: A liquid good for preserving almost everything except secrets.
Other Authors and Sources
Charles Wayland Towne, The Foolish Dictionary (1905)
Almost anything can be preserved in alcohol, except health, happiness, and money.
You’re trying to drown your sorrows in alcohol and it won’t work. Sorrows know how to swim.
Ann Landers (1918-2002) American advice columnist [pseud. for Eppie Lederer]
“Ask Ann Landers,” syndicated column (1958)
Landers used the phrase multiple times, e.g.,However, the phrase predates her in a variety of anonymous sources; see here for more discussion.
- "And now an added P.S. In these days of political unrest, financial crisis and emotional upheaval, a word to those of you who are trying to drown your sorrow. Please be aware that sorrow knows how to swim." [The Ann Landers Encyclopedia: A to Z (1978)]
- "People who drink to drown their sorrow should be told that sorrow knows how to swim."
I took a sip. It went surprisingly well with the veal. On the other hand, the fourth margarita goes surprisingly well with everything.
Robert B. Parker (1932-2010) American writer
Taming A Sea-Horse (1986)
Show me the way to go home
I’m tired and I want to go to bed
I had a little drink about an hour ago
And it went right to my head.Irving King (fl. 1920s) British songwriter [pseud. of Jimmy Campbell (1903-1967) and Reg Connelly (c. 1895-1963)]
“Show Me the Way to Go Home” (1925)
R-E-M-O-R-S-E!
Those dry Martinis did the work for me;
Last night at twelve I felt immense,
Today I feel like thirty cents.,
My eyes are bleared, my coppers hot,
I’ll try to eat, but I cannot.
It is no time for mirth and laughter,
The cold, gray down of the morning after.George Ade (1866-1944) American writer, newspaper columnist, playwright
The Sultan of Sulu, Act 2 (1903)
Of all the men embezzling from their employers with whom I have had contact, I can’t remember a dozen who smoked, drank or had any of the vices in which bonding companies are so interested.
Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) American author, screenwriter, political activist
Interview with Helen Herbert Foster, “House Burglary Poor Trade,” Brooklyn Eagle Magazine (Oct 1929)
(Source)
Besides, there are two things that will be believed of any man whatsoever, and one of them is that he has taken to drink.
New Year’s is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls, and humbug resolutions, and we wish you to enjoy it with a looseness suited to the greatness of the occasion.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
“New Year’s Day,” Virginia City Territorial Enterprise (Jan 1864)
(Source)
SYDNEY: Even though a number of people have tried, no one has yet found a way to drink for a living.
Jean Kerr (1922-2003) American author and playwright [b. Bridget Jean Collins]
Poor Richard, Act 1 (1965)
Liquor doesn’t make you feel better. Just makes you not so worried about feeling bad.
James S. A. Corey (contemp.) American writer [pen name of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck]
Leviathan Wakes (2011)
It is disgusting to notice the increase in the quantity of coffee used by my subjects. … If possible, this must be prevented. My people must drink beer.
Frederick II (1712-1786) King of Prussia (a.k.a. Frederick the Great)
Proclamation (13 Sep 1777)
Wine gives a man nothing. It neither gives him knowledge nor wit; it only animates a man, and enables him to bring out what a dread of the company has repressed. It only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Comment (28 Apr 1778)
In James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
It seems there is something spiritual in wine.
Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French moralist
Pensées (1838) [ed. Auster (1983)]
Wine has drowned more than the sea.
Publilius Syrus (d. 42 BC) Assyrian slave, writer, philosopher [less correctly Publius Syrus]
Sententiae [Moral Sayings]
Alt. trans.: "Wine drowns more than the sea."
Alcohol is nicissary f’r a man so that now an’ thin he can have a good opinion iv himsilf, ondisturbed be th’ facts.
[Alcohol is necessary for a man so that now and then he can have a good opinion of himself, undisturbed by the facts.]
Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936) American humorist and journalist
“Mr. Dooley on Alcohol,” Chicago Tribune (26 Apr 1914)
Whenever the devil harasses you, seek the company of men or drink more, or joke and talk nonsense, or do some other merry thing. Sometimes we must drink more, sport, recreate ourselves, aye, and even sin a little to spite the devil, so that we leave him no place for troubling our consciences with trifles. We are conquered if we try too conscientiously not to sin at all. So when the devil says to you: “Do not drink,” answer him: “I will drink, and right freely, just because you tell me not to.” One must always do what Satan forbids.
Martin Luther (1483-1546) German religious reformer
Letter to Jerome Weller (Jul 1530)
(Source)
Alt. trans.: "We are soon defeated if we try too hard not to sin. So when the devil says ‘Do not drink’ answer him: ‘I shall drink, and right freely, just because you tell me not to!’"
Alcohol is like love: the first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine. After that you just take the girl’s clothes off.
Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) American novelist
The Long Good-bye, ch. 12 (1954)
“You’d better be prepared for the jump into hyperspace. It’s unpleasantly like being drunk.”
“What’s so unpleasant about being drunk?”
“You ask a glass of water.”
Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English writer
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, ch. 6 (1979)
