Henry David Thoreau Quotes

A drunkard is one thing, and a temperate man is quite another.

There is nothing wrong with sobriety in moderation.

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

I promise ... to abstain from all kinds of intoxicating drink, unless used medically.

Abstinence from spirituous liquors is the best safeguard of morals and health.

Since the creation of the world there has been no tyrant like Intemperance, and no slaves so cruelly treated as his.

I have never been drunk in my life, and I don't expect I ever will be.

I didn't drink for two years.

something has been said for sobriety but very little.

I think a man ought to get drunk at least twice a year just on principle, so he won't let himself get snotty about it.

We have drunk too much of your rum already, which has occasioned our destruction; we will, in the future, beware of it.

I can go eight days without a drink—but who wants to be a camel.

I am not a member of any temperance society; but I am temperate, in this, that I don’t drink anything.

Drunkenness was attacked in the same manner; it was discountenanced on every occasion by those who had charge of any department: its destructive and pernicious effects were frequently stated by his own more prudent comrades, at the proper moment when the individual was soberly suffering from the effects of his previous excess; pot- and public-houses were gradually removed from the immediate vicinity of their dwellings; the health and comfort of temperance were made familiar to them; by degrees drunkenness disappeared, and many who were habitual bacchanalians are now conspicuous for undeviating sobriety.

As regards the use of wine, remember that we drink to quench thirst, and that the limit of moderation is reached when the edge of the intellect is dulled. A boy should be brought up to avoid wine…. Your own countrymen, like all northern peoples, are, I know, sore offenders in this matter of eating and drinking. But I count upon your own innate self-respect to preserve you from such bad example, and to enable you to despise the sneers and complaints of those around you.

Take heed to your selves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness.

I don't believe in alcohol. It's a sort of a medicinal necessity for the human condition, none of that stuff. I'm not a gambling man.

I don't drink at all.

I don't even drink.

No doubt alcohol, tobacco, and so forth, are things that a saint must avoid; but sainthood is also a thing that human beings must avoid.

A little in drink, but at all times your faithful husband.

I am too much of a control freak to be a drinker.

The point of drinking in moderation is that sometimes you don't drink in moderation.

I drink no more than a sponge.

Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.