Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

Better belly burst than good liquor be lost.

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

The exclusion of wine from the list of refreshments has turned out exceedingly well. There is a great deal of dissipation here [in Washington DC] At the reception of the British Minister, and that of the Mexican Minister, disgraceful things were done by young men, made reckless by too much wine. Hence the necessity of our course is obvious, and is commended in unexpected quarters. Many of the foreign gentlemen speak of it with approval. We shall stick to it.

There is a mistaken idea, ancient but still with us, that an overdose of anything from fornication to hot chocolate will teach restraint by the very results of its abuse.

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

The best things carried to excess are wrong.

Even at my peak, I never went too over the top.

To the totality of purposes of the perfect Law there belong the abandonment, depreciation, and restraint of desires in so far as possible.

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

Drink not the third glass, which thou canst not tame, when once it is within thee.

It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.

Everything in excess is opposed to nature.

Indulging in unrestrained and immoderate laughter is a sign of intemperance, of a want of control over one's emotions, and of failure to repress the soul's frivolity by a stern use of reason.

I can't do anything in moderation.

Here's a rule I recommend: Never practice two vices at once.

Temperance is moderation in the things that are good and total abstinence from the things that are foul.

My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after, and if need be during all meals and the intervals between them.

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

Other things being equal, I would much prefer a temperate man [for public office], to an intemperate one; still I do not make my vote depend absolutely upon the question of whether a candidate does or does not taste liquor.

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.

Those in middling circumstances, have less temptation—they are inclined by habit and the company with whom they associate, to set bounds to their passions and appetites—if this is not sufficient, the want of means to gratify them will be a restraint—they are obliged to employ their time in their respective callings—hence less substantial yeomanry of the country are more temperate, or better morals and less ambition than the great.

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

Give me chastity and continence, but not yet.

We've led pretty wholesome lives. We haven't lived life to excess like so many groups have done.

restraint equals indulgence