Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Wine and Spirits
I hang no ivie out to sell my wine;
The nectar of good wits will sell itself.
Allot—England’s Parnassus. Sonnet to the Reader.
Firm and erect the Caledonian stood;
Sound was his mutton, and his claret good;
“Let him drink port!” the English statesman cried:
He drank the poison, and his spirit died.
Anon. In Dodd’s Epigrammatists. (1870).
Old Simon the cellarer keeps a rare store
Of Malmsey and Malvoisie.
G. W. Bellamy—Simon the Cellarer.
John Barleycorn was a hero bold,
Of noble enterprise,
For if you do but taste his blood,
’Twill make your courage rise,
’Twill make a man forget his wo;
’Twill heighten all his joy.
Burns—John Barleycorn. St. 13.
So Noah, when he anchor’d safe on
The mountain’s top, his lofty haven,
And all the passengers he bore
Were on the new world set ashore,
He made it next his chief design
To plant and propagate a vine,
Which since has overwhelm’d and drown’d
Far greater numbers, on dry ground,
Of wretched mankind, one by one,
Than all the flood before had done.
Butler—Satire Upon Drunkenness. L. 105.
Few things surpass old wine; and they may preach
Who please, the more because they preach in vain,—
Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter,
Sermons and soda-water the day after.
Byron—Don Juan. Canto II. St. 178.
Which cheers the sad, revives the old, inspires
The young, makes Weariness forget his toil,
And Fear her danger; opens a new world
When this, the present, palls.
Byron—Sardanapalus. Act I. Sc. 1.
Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in barrels.
Byron—Sweet Things. St. 5.
Sing! Who sings
To her who weareth a hundred rings?
Ah, who is this lady fine?
The Vine, boys, the Vine!
The mother of the mighty Wine,
A roamer is she
O’er wall and tree
And sometimes very good company.
Barry Cornwall—A Bacchanalian Song.
Ten thousand casks,
Forever dribbling out their base contents,
Touch’d by the Midas finger of the state,
Bleed gold for ministers to sport away.
Drink, and be mad then; ’tis your country bids!
Cowper—The Task. Bk. IV. L. 504.
The conscious water saw its God and blushed.
Crashaw—Translation of His Own Epigram on the Miracle of Cana. St. John’s Gospel. Ch. II.
“It wasn’t the wine,” murmured Mr. Snodgrass in a broken voice, “it was the salmon.”
Dickens—Pickwick Papers. Ch. VIII.
When asked what wines he liked to drink he replied, “That which belongs to another.”
Diogenes Laertius—Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. Diogenes. VI. Yonge’s trans.
Bring me wine, but wine which never grew
In the belly of the grape,
Or grew on vine whose tap-roots, reaching through
Under the Andes to the Cape,
Suffered no savor of the earth to escape.
Emerson—Bacchus. St. 1.
From wine what sudden friendship springs?
Gay—Fables. Pt. II. Fable 6.
Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain,
With grammar, and nonsense, and learning;
Good liquor, I stoutly maintain,
Gives genius a better discerning.
Goldsmith—She Stoops to Conquer. Act I. Sc. 1. Song.
Call things by their right names***Glass of brandy and water! That is the current, but not the appropriate name; ask for a glass of liquid fire and distilled damnation.
Robert Hall. Gregory’s Life of Hall. Vol. I. P. 59.
The wine in the bottle does not quench thirst.
Herbert—Jacula Prudentum.
Wine makes all sorts of creatures at table.
Herbert—Jacula Prudentum.
You cannot know wine by the barrel.
Herbert—Jacula Prudentum.
Sparkling and bright, in liquid light,
Does the wine our goblets gleam in;
With hue as red as the rosy bed
Which a bee would choose to dream in.
Charles Fenno Hoffman—Sparkling and Bright.
And wine can of their wits the wise beguile,
Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile.
Homer—Odyssey. Bk. XIV. L. 520. Pope’s trans.
Nunc vino pellite curas.
Now drown care in wine.
Horace—Carmina. I. 7. 32.
Vino diffugiunt mordaces curæ.
By wine eating cares are put to flight.
Adapted from Horace—Carmina. I. 18. 4; and 7. 31.
Quis post vina gravem militiam aut pauperiem crepat?
Who prates of war or want after his wine?
Horace—Carmina. I. 18. 5.
Spes donare novas largus, amaraque
Curarum eluere efficax.
Mighty to inspire new hopes, and able to drown the bitterness of cares.
Horace—Carmina. IV. 12. 19.
Fœcundi calices quem non fecere disertum.
Whom has not the inspiring bowl made eloquent.
Horace—Epistles. I. 5. 19.
As for the brandy, “nothing extenuate”; and the water, put nought in in malice.
Douglas Jerrold—Jerrold’s Wit. Shakespeare Grog.
Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.
Samuel Johnson—Boswell’s Life of Johnson. (1779).
But that which most doth take my muse and me,
Is a pure cup of rich Canary wine,
Which is the mermaid’s now, but shall be mine.
Ben Jonson—Epigram CI.
Wine it is the milk of Venus,
And the poet’s horse accounted:
Ply it and you all are mounted.
Ben Jonson. From lines over the door of the “Apollo.” “Wine to the poet is a wingéd steed: / Those who drink water come but little speed.” From the Greek Anthology.
Dance and Provençal song and sunburnt mirth!
Oh for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene!
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth.
Keats—Ode to a Nightingale.
There is a devil in every berry of the grape.
The Koran.
Filled with the wine
Of the vine
Benign
That flames so red in Sansavine.
Longfellow—Hyperion. Ch. VIII. (Quoted.)
When flowing cups pass swiftly round
With no allaying Thames.
Richard Lovelace—To Althea from Prison. II.
Things of greatest profit are set forth with least price. Where the wine is neat there needeth no ivie bush.
Lyly—Euphues. A. 3.
The produce of the vineyards has not failed everywhere, Ovidius. The heavy rains have been productive. Coranus made up a hundred jars by means of the water.
Martial—Epigrams. Bk. IX. Ep. 98.
Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape,
Crushed the sweet poison of misused wine.
Milton—Comus. II. 46.
If with water you fill up your glasses,
You’ll never write anything wise;
For wine is the horse of Parnassus,
Which hurries a bard to the skies.
Moore.
O Roman punch! O potent Curaçoa!
O Maraschino! Maraschino O!
Delicious drams! Why have you not the art
To kill this gnawing Book-worm in my heart?
Moore—Twopenny Post Bag. See Appendix, Letter VII.
Better be jocund with the fruitful Grape
Than sadden after none, or bitter fruit.
Omar Khayyam—Rubaiyat. FitzGerald’s trans. St. 54.
The Grape that can with Logic absolute
The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute:
The sovereign Alchemist that in a trice
Life’s leaden metal into Gold transmute.
Omar Khayyam—Rubaiyat. FitzGerald’s trans. St. 59.
Vina paract animos, faciuntque coloribus aptos:
Cura fugit multo diluiturque mero.
Wine stimulates the mind and makes it quick with heat; care flees and is dissolved in much drink.
Ovid—Ars Amatoria. Bk. I. 237.
Magnum hoc vitium vino est,
Pedes captat primum; luctator dolosu est.
This is the great evil in wine, it first seizes the feet; it is a cunning wrestler.
Plautus—Pseudolus. Act V. 1. 5.
It has become quite a common proverb that in wine there is truth.
Pliny the Elder—Natural History. Bk. XIV. Sec. XIV.
In proverbium cessit, sapientiam vino adumbrari.
It has passed into a proverb, that wisdom is overshadowed by wine.
Pliny the Elder—Historia Naturalis. XXIII. 23. 1.
Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging.
Proverbs. XX. 1.
Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup;… at the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.
Proverbs. XXIII. 31. 32.
Wine that maketh glad the heart of man.
Psalms. CIV. 15.
We care not for money, riches, nor wealth;
Old sack is our money, old sack is our wealth.
Thomas Randolph—The Praise of Old Sack.
Der Wein erfindet nichts, er schwatzt’s nur aus.
Wine tells nothing, it only tattles.
Schiller—Piccolomini. IV. 7. 42.
Vinum incendit iram.
Wine kindles wrath.
Seneca—De Ira. Bk. II. 19.
A cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tiber in ’t.
Coriolanus. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 52.
Give me a bowl of wine;
In this I bury all unkindness.
Julius Cæsar. Act IV. Sc. 3. L. 158.
O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil!
Othello. Act II. Sc. 3. L. 283.
Come, come, good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be well used; exclaim no more against it.
Othello. Act II. Sc. 3. L. 313.
Give me a bowl of wine:
I have not that alacrity of spirit,
Nor cheer of mind, that I was wont to have.
Richard III. Act V. Sc. 3. L. 72.
Like the best wine,… that goeth down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak.
Song of Solomon. VII. 9.
Day and night my thoughts incline
To the blandishments of wine,
Jars were made to drain, I think;
Wine, I know, was made to drink.
R. H. Stoddard—A Jar of Wine.
You need not hang up the ivy branch over the wine that will sell.
Syrus—Maxim 968.
When the wine’s in, murder will out.
Talmud—Erubin 65.
Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake.
I Timothy. V. 23.
He has had a smack of every sort of wine, from humble port to Imperial Tokay.
Rev. James Townley—High Life below Stairs.
The hop for his profit I thus do exalt,
It strengtheneth drink, and it favoureth malt:
And being well brewed, long kept it will last,
And drawing abide—if you draw not too fast.
Tusser—Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandrie. A Lesson When and Where to Plant a Good Hop-Yard. Ch. XLIII.
And must I wholly banish hence
These red and golden juices,
And pay my vows to Abstinence,
That pallidest of Muses?
William Watson—To a Maiden who bade me shun Wine.