Pliny the Elder Quotes

Wine was given us by God, not that we might be drunken, but that we might be sober. It is the best medicine when it has the best moderation to direct it. Wine was given to restore the body's weakness, not to overturn the soul's strength.

Sir, I have no objection to a man's drinking wine, if he can do it in moderation. I found myself apt to go to excess in it, and therefore, after having been for some time without it, on account of illness, I thought it better not to return to it. Every man is to judge for himself, according to the effects which he experiences.

Wine taken in moderation never does any harm.

Too much of anything is bad, but too much Champagne is just right.

For both excessive and insufficient exercise destroy one's strength, and both eating and drinking too much or too little destroy health, whereas the right quantity produces, increases and preserves it. So it is the same with temperance, courage and the other virtues. This much then, is clear: in all our conduct it is the mean that is to be commended.

We thought of wine as something as healthy and normal as food and also as a great giver of happiness and well being and delight.

Two drinks a day. Two drinks a day. TWO DRINKS A DAY! It doesn't work! Not when you want eleven, and not when you start shopping for wine glasses in the vase department at Bloomingdales.

The truth lies in between the 1st and the 40th drink

If a man rejoice not in his drinking, he is mad; for in drinking it's possible ... to fondle breasts, and to caress well tended locks, and there is dancing withal, and oblivion of woe.

Never spare the parson's wine nor the baker's pudding

Accept what life offers you and try to drink from every cup. All wines should be tasted; some should only be sipped, but with others, drink the whole bottle.

Wine prepares the heart for love, unless you take too much.

Sensuality not only debases both body and mind, but dulls the keen edge of pleasure.

Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?

Wine gives great pleasure; and every pleasure is of itself a good. It is a good, unless counterbalanced by evil.

No nation was ever drunk when wine was cheap.

[On alcohol:] Total abstinence is an impossibility and ... it will not do to insist on it as a general practice.

There is a difference between eating and drinking for strength and from mere gluttony.

One should always be drunk. That's all that matters...But with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you chose. But get drunk.

We should thank God for beer and burgundy by not drinking too much of them.

I never drink without a thirst, either present or future.

Wine, not too much, inspires and make the mind,to the soft joys of Venus strong inclined,which, buried in excess, unapt to love,stupidly lies and knows not hom to move

And Noah he often said to his wife when he sat down to dine, "I don't care where the water goes if it doesn't get into the wine."

Upon occasion we should go as far as intoxication.... Drink washes cares away, stirs the mind from its lowest depths.... But in liberty moderation is wholesome, and so it is in wine.... We ought not indulge too often, for fear the mind contract a bad habit, yet it is right to draw it toward elation and release and to banish dull sobriety for a little.