Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Temperance
And he that will to bed go sober,
Falls with the leaf still in October.
Beaumont and Fletcher—Bloody Brother. Song. Act II. Sc. 2. (From an old “Catch.”)
Of a nature so mild and benign and proportioned to the human constitution as to warm without heating, to cheer but not inebriate. [Tar Water.]
Bishop Berkeley—Siris. Par. 217.
Call’d to the temple of impure delight
He that abstains, and he alone, does right.
If a wish wander that way, call it home;
He cannot long be safe whose wishes roam.
Cowper—Progress of Error. L. 557.
Temp’rate in every place—abroad, at home,
Thence will applause, and hence will profit come;
And health from either—he in time prepares
For sickness, age, and their attendant cares.
Crabbe—Borough. Letter XVII. L. 198.
Abstinence is whereby a man refraineth from any thyng which he may lawfully take.
Elyot—Governour. Bk. III. Ch. XVI.
Drink not the third glass, which thou canst not tame,
When once it is within thee; but before
Mayst rule it, as thou list: and pour the shame,
Which it would pour on thee, upon the floor.
It is most just to throw that on the ground,
Which would throw me there, if I keep the round.
Herbert—Temple. The Church Porch. Perirrhanterium. St. 5.
Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.
Samuel Johnson—Hannah More’s Johnsoniana. 467.
Of my merit
On that pint you yourself may jedge:
All is, I never drink no sperit,
Nor I haint never signed no pledge.
Lowell—Biglow Papers. First Series. No. VII. St. 9.
If all the world
Should in a pet of temp’rance, feed on pulse,
Drink the clear stream, and nothing wear but frieze,
Th’ All-giver would be unthank’d, would be unprais’d.
Milton—Comus. L. 720.
Impostor; do not charge most innocent Nature,
As if she would her children should be riotous
With her abundance; she, good cateress,
Means her provision only to the good,
That live according to her sober laws,
And holy dictate of spare temperance.
Milton—Comus. L. 762.
Well observe
The rule of Not too much, by temperance taught
In what thou eat’st and drink’st.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. XI. L. 531.
O madness to think use of strongest wines
And strongest drinks our chief support of health,
When God with these forbidden made choice to rear
His mighty champion, strong above compare,
Whose drink was only from the liquid brook.
Milton—Samson Agonistes. L. 553.
Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;
Leave gormandizing.
Henry IV. Pt. II. Act V. Sc. 5. L. 56.
Ask God for temperance; that’s the appliance only
Which your disease requires.
Henry VIII. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 124.