George Herbert Quotes

Of all vices take heed of drunkenness; other vices are but fruits of disordered affections--this disorders, nay, banishes reason; other vices but impair the soul--this demolishes her two chief faculties, the understanding and the will; other vices make their own way--this makes way for all vices; he that is a drunkard is qualified for all vice.

When a man has been intemperate so long that shame no longer paints a blush upon his cheek, his liquor generally does it instead.

When men take pleasure in feeling their minds elevated with strong drink, and so indulge their appetite as to disorder their understandings, neglect their duty as members of a family or civil society, and cast off all regard to religion, their case is much to be pitied.

Liquor perverts the end of society, and unfits us for all those distinguishing and exquisite Feelings, which are the Cordials of Life, and the noblest Privileges of Humanity.

The King, long in the habit of drowning his cares in wine, plunges deeper and deeper; the Queen cries out but, but sins on.

The American who drinks wine is in danger of becoming the victim of drunkenness, licentiousness, and gambling.

… a jackass in the original package. He is a poor drunken imbecile.

The demon of intemperance ever seems to have delighted in sucking the blood of genius and of generosity. What one of us but can call to mind some relative more promising in youth than all his fellows, who has fallen a sacrifice to his rapacity?

To describe drunkenness for the colorful vocabulary is rather cynical. There is nothing easier than to capitalize on drunkards.

Other vices make their own way; this makes way for all vices. He that is a drunkard is qualified for all vice.

A drunkard is like a whiskey-bottle, all neck and belly and no head.

Drunkenness is the vice of a good constitution or of a bad memory of a constitution so treacherously good that it never bends till it breaks; or of a memory that recollects the pleasures of getting intoxicated, but forgets the pains of getting sober.

Some people, every now and then, simply had to have One Too Many, go drifty voiced and slouch mouthed, swimming willfully around in their own sadness as if it were hot springs.

All excess is ill; but drunkenness is of the worst sort. It spoils health, dismounts the mind, and unmans men. It reveals secrets, is quarrelsome, lascivious, impudent, dangerous, and mad.

I had been brought up and trained to have the utmost contempt for people who got drunk - and I would have liked to have the boozing scholars of the Universities wheeled into line and properly chastised for their squalid misuse of what I must ever regard as a gift of the gods.

Drunkenness is an immoderate affection and use of drink. That I call immoderation that is besides or beyond that order of good things for which God hath given us the use of drink.

The drunken man is a living corpse.

O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou has no name to be known by, let us call thee devil....O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! that we should, with joy, pleasance revel and applause, transform ourselves into beasts!

The drunkard is convicted by his praises of wine.

An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than most men.

Drinking makes such fools of people, and people are such fools to begin with that it's compounding a felony.

Bacchus, n.: A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk.

I know I'm drinking myself to a slow death, but then I'm in no hurry.

Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough.