Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Drinking
Fill up the goblet and reach to me some!
Drinking makes wise, but dry fasting makes glum.
Wm. R. Alger—Oriental Poetry. Wine Song of Kaitmas.
Here
With my beer
I sit,
While golden moments flit:
Alas!
They pass
Unheeded by:
And as they fly,
I,
Being dry,
Sit, idly sipping here
My beer.
George Arnold—Beer.
Or merry swains, who quaff the nut-brown ale,
And sing enamour’d of the nut-brown maid.
Beattie—The Minstrel. Bk. I. St. 44.
Nose, nose, jolly red nose,
And who gave thee that jolly red nose?
Nutmegs and ginger, cinammon and cloves;
And they gave me this jolly red nose.
Beaumont and Fletcher—Knight of the Burning Pestle. Act I. Sc. 4.
“Nose, nose, nose, nose!
And who gave you that jolly red nose!
Sinamont and ginger, nutmegs and cloves,
And that gave me my jolly red nose!”
Version in Ravencroft’s Deuteromela. (1609).
What harm in drinking can there be,
Since punch and life so well agree?
Blacklock—Epigram on Punch. L. 15. (1788).
When the liquor’s out, why clink the cannikin?
Robert Browning—The Flight of the Duchess. XVI.
There’s some are fou o’ love divine,
There’s some are fou o’ brandy.
Burns—The Holy Fair. St. 30.
Inspiring bold John Barleycorn,
What dangers thou canst make us scorn!
Wi’ tippenny, we fear nae evil;
Wi’ usquebae, we’ll face the devil!
Burns—Tam o’ Shanter. L. 105.
I drink when I have occasion, and sometimes when I have no occasion.
Cervantes—Don Quixote. Pt. II. Ch. XXXIII.
And broughte of mighty ale a large quart.
Chaucer—Canterbury Tales. The Milleres Tale. L. 3,497.
If you are invited to drink at any man’s house more than you think is wholesome, you may say “you wish you could, but so little makes you both drunk and sick; that you should only be bad company by doing so.”
Lord Chesterfield—Principles of Politeness and of Knowing the World. Sec. Sundry Little Accomplishments.
Non est ab homine nunquam sobrio postulanda prudentia.
Prudence must not be expected from a man who is never sober.
Cicero—Philippicæ. II. 32.
Mynheer Vandunck, though he never was drunk,
Sipped brandy and water gayly.
George Colman (“The Younger.”)—Mynheer Vandunck.
Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.
I Corinthians. XV. 32. Isaiah. XXII. 13. Convivæ certe tui dicunt, Bibamus moriendum est. Seneca—Controv. XIV.
Nothing in Nature’s sober found,
But an eternal Health goes round.
Fill up the Bowl then, fill it high—
Fill all the Glasses there; for why
Should every Creature Drink but I?
Why, Man of Morals, tell me why?
Cowley—Anacreon II. Drinking.
The thirsty Earth soaks up the Rain,
And drinks, and gapes for Drink again;
The Plants suck in the Earth and are
With constant Drinking fresh and fair.
Cowley—Anacreon II. Drinking.
Let the farmer praise his grounds,
Let the huntsman praise his hounds,
The shepherd his dew scented lawn,
But I more blessed than they,
Spend each happy night and day
With my charming little cruiskeen lan, lan, lan.
Cruiskeen Lawn—Irish Song.
Did you ever hear of Captain Wattle?
He was all for love and a little for the bottle.
Chas. Dibdin—Captain Wattle and Miss Rol.
When I got up to the Peacock—where I found everybody drinking hot punch in self-preservation.
Dickens—The Holly Tree Inn.
“Wery good power o’ suction, Sammy,” said Mr. Weller the elder…. “You’d ha’ made an uncommon fine oyster, Sammy, if you’d been born in that station o’ life.”
Dickens—Pickwick Papers. Ch. XXIII.
Inebriate of air am I,
And debauchee of dew,
Reeling, through endless summer days,
From inns of molten blue.
Emily Dickinson—Poems. XX.
How gracious those dews of solace that over my senses fall
At the clink of the ice in the pitcher the boy brings up the hall.
Eugene Field—The Clink of the Ice.
Come landlord fill a flowing bowl until it does run over,
Tonight we will all merry be—tomorrow we’ll get sober.
Fletcher—Bloody Brother. Act II. Sc. 2.
Landlord fill the flowing bowl
Until it doth run over:
For to-night we’ll merry be
To-morrow we’ll be sober.
Version of Fletcher’s song in Three Jolly Postboys. (18th century song.)
Drink to-day, and drown all sorrow;
You shall perhaps not do it to-morrow.
Fletcher—The Bloody Brother. Song. Act II. Sc. 2.
Tell me I hate the bowl? Hate is a feeble word;
I loathe, abhor—my very soul and strong disgust is stirred
Whene’er I see or hear or tell of the dark beverage of hell.
Attributed to John B. Gough; denied by him.
It’s a long time between drinks.
The Governor of South Carolina required the return of a fugitive slave. The Governor of North Carolina hesitated because of powerful friends of the fugitive. He gave a banquet to his official brother. The Governor of South Carolina in a speech demanded the return of the slave and ended with “What do you say?” The Governor of North Carolina replied as above. It is also attributed to Judge Ædanus Burke.
Where the drink goes in, there the wit goes out.
Herbert—Jacula Prudentum.
If you’d dip in such joys, come—the better, the quicker!—
But remember the fee—for it suits not my ends
To let you make havoc, scot free, with my liquor,
As though I wore one of your heavy-pursed friends.
Horace. Bk. IV. Ode XII. To Vergil. Trans. by Theo. Martin.
They who drink beer will think beer.
Quoted by Washington Irving—Sketch-book, Stratford-on-Avon. They who drink water will think water. (Travesty of the foregoing.)
Nor shall our cups make any guilty men;
But at our parting, we will be, as when
We innocently met.
Ben Jonson—Epigram CI.
Well, as he brews, so shall he drink.
Ben Jonson—Every Man in His Humour. Act II. Sc. 1.
Let those that merely talk and never think,
That live in the wild anarchy of drink.
Ben Jonson—Underwoods. An Epistle, answering to One that asked to be sealed of the Tribe of Ben.
Just a wee deoch-an-doris, just a wee yin, that’s a’.
Just a wee deoch-an-doris before we gang a-wa’,
There’s a wee wifie waitin’, in a wee but-an-ben;
If you can say “It’s a braw bricht moon-licht nicht
Y’re a ’richt ye ken.
Harry Lauder, Will Cunliffe, Gerald Grafton—Just a Wee Deoch-an-Doris.
And I wish his soul in heaven may dwell,
Who first invented this leathern bottel!
Leathern Bottel.
Now to rivulets from the mountains
Point the rods of fortune-tellers;
Youth perpetual dwells in fountains,
Not in flasks, and casks, and cellars.
Longfellow—Drinking Song. St. 8.
Myrtale often smells of wine, but, wise,
With eating bay-leaves thinks it to disguise:
So nott with water tempers the wine’s heate,
But covers it. Henceforth if her you meete
With red face and swell’d veynes, modestly say,
“Sure Myrtale hath drunk o’ th’ bayes today?”
Martial—Epigrams. Bk. V. 4. Trans. in a MS. 16th Century.
Attic honey thickens the nectar-like Falernian. Such drink deserves to be mixed by Ganymede.
Martial—Epigrams. Bk. XIII. 108.
Let Nepos place Cæretan wine on table, and you will deem it Setine. But he does not give it to all the world; he drinks it only with a trio of friends.
Martial—Epigrams. Bk. XIII. Ep. 124.
Provocarem ad Philippum, inquit, sed sobrium.
I would appeal to Philip, she said, but to Philip sober.
Valerius Maximus. Bk. VI. II. Ext. 1.
One sip of this
Will bathe the drooping spirits in delight,
Beyond the bliss of dreams.
Milton—Comus. L. 811.
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale.
Milton—L’Allegro. L. 100.
When treading London’s well-known ground
If e’er I feel my spirits tire,
I haul my sail, look up around,
In search of Whitbread’s best entire.
From “The Myrtle and the Vine.” A Complete Vocal Library. A Pot of Porter, Ho!
Drinking will make a man quaff,
Quaffing will make a man sing,
Singing will make a man laugh,
And laughing long life doth bring,
Says old Simon the King.
Old Sir Simon the King. Found in Durfey’s Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy. Referring to Simon Wadloe, tavern-keeper at the “Devil,” Fleet Street, about 1621.
Inter pocula.
Over their cups.
Persius—Satires. I. 30.
There St. John mingles with my friendly bowl
The feast of reason and the flow of soul.
Pope—Second Book of Horace. Satire I. L. 128.
They never taste who always drink.
Prior—On a Passage in the Scaligerana.
Je ne boy en plus qu’une esponge.
I do not drink more than a sponge.
Rabelais—Gargantua. Bk. I. Ch. 5.
Il y a plus de vieux ivrongnes qu’il y a de vieux médecins.
There are more old drunkards than old physicians.
Rabelais—Gargantua. Bk. I. Ch. XLII.
Die Limonade ist matt wie deine Seele—versuche!
This lemonade is weak like your soul—try it.
Schiller—Cabale und Liebe. V. 7.
Drink down all unkindness.
Merry Wives of Windsor. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 203.
I have very poor and unhappy brains for drinking: I could wish courtesy would invent some other custom of entertainment.
Othello. Act II. Sc. 3. L. 35.
This bottle’s the sun of our table,
His beams are rosy wine;
We planets that are not able
Without his help to shine.
R. B. Sheridan—The Duenna. Act III. Sc. 5.
Si bene commemini, causæ sunt quinque bibendi;
Hospitis adventus, præsens sitis, atque futura,
Aut vini bonitas, aut quælibet altera causa.
If all be true that I do think,
There are five reasons we should drink;
Good wine—a friend—or being dry—
Or lest we should be by and by—
Or any other reason why.
Attributed to Père Sirmond by Menage and De la Monnoye. See Menagiana. Vol. I. P. 172. Given in Isaac J. Reeve’s Wild Garland. Vol. II. Trans. by Henry Aldrich.
Let the back and sides go bare, my boys,
Let the hands and the feet gang cold;
But give to belly, boys, beer enough,
Whether it be new or old.
The Beggar. Old English Folk Song. Version in Cecil Sharpe’s Folk-Songs from Somerset.
Back and side go bare, go bare,
Both foot and hand go cold;
But belly, God send thee good ale enough,
Whether it be new or old.
Bishop Still—Gammer Gurton’s Needle. Act II.
I cannot eat but little meat,
My stomach is not good;
But sure I think that I can drink
With him that wears a hood.
Bishop Still—Gammer Gurton’s Needle. Act II. Authorship of the song claimed for William Stevenson of Durham. (Died 1575). In Hutchinson’s Songs of the Vine. Said to be found in old MS. See Skelton Works. Vol. I. Note to pages VII–X. Dyce’s ed. Gammer Gurton’s Needle claimed for John Bridges.
Absentem lædit cum ebrio qui litigat.
He hurts the absent who quarrels with a drunken man.
Syrus—Maxims.
While briskly to each patriot lip
Walks eager round the inspiring flip;
Delicious draught, whose pow’rs inherit
The quintessence of public spirit!
John Trumbull—McFingal. Canto III. L. 21.
We’re gaily yet, we’re gaily yet,
And we’re not very fow, but we’re gaily yet;
Then set ye awhile, and tipple a bit,
For we’s not very fow, but we’re gaily yet.
Vanbrugh—Provoked Wife. Act III. Sc. 2. Song—Colonel Bully.
They drink with impunity, or anybody who invites them.
Artemus Ward—Moses the Sassy. Programme.
Drink, pretty creature, drink!
Wordsworth—The Pet Lamb.
For drink, there was beer which was very strong when not mingled with water, but was agreeable to those who were used to it. They drank this with a reed, out of the vessel that held the beer, upon which they saw the barley swim.
Xenophon—Anabasis. Bk. IV. Ch. V.