Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging
—Common Proverb
This wine is too good for toast-drinking, my dear. You don’t want to mix emotions up with a wine like that. You lose the taste.
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American Author, Journalist, Short Story Writer
To succeed you must add water to your wine, until there is no more wine.
—Jules Renard (1864–1910) French Writer, Diarist
I made wine out of raisins so I would not have to wait for it to age.
—Steven Wright (b.1955) American Comedian, Actor, Writer
Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine; Or leave a kiss but in the cup And I will not look for wine.
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637) English Dramatist, Poet, Actor
Is not old wine wholesomest, old pippins toothsomest, old wood burn brightest, old linen wash whitest? Old soldiers, sweethearts, are surest, and old lovers are soundest.
—John Webster (1580–1634) English Dramatist, Poet
No one that has drunk old wine wants new; for he says, The old is nice.
—Steven Wright (b.1955) American Comedian, Actor, Writer
The flavor of wine is like delicate poetry
—Louis Pasteur (1822–95) French Biologist
How simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea… . All that is required to feel that here and now is happiness is a simple, frugal heart.
—Nikos Kazantzakis (1883–1957) Greek Novelist, Poet, Dramatist
Give me wine to wash me clean of the weather-stains of care.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
I am falser than vows made in wine.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
French wines may be said but to pickle meat in the stomach, but this is the wine that digests, and doth not only breed good blood, but it nutrifieth also, being a glutinous substantial liquor; of this wine, if of any other, may be verified that merry induction: That good wine makes good blood, good blood causeth good humors, good humors cause good thoughts, good thoughts bring forth good works, good works carry a man to heaven, ergo, good wine carrieth a man to heaven.
—James Howell (c.1593–1666) Anglo-Welsh Writer, Historian
It is better to hide ignorance, but it is hard to do this when we relax over wine.
—Heraclitus (535BCE–475BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher
Away with you, water, destruction of wine.
—Catullus (84–54 BCE) Roman Latin Poet
Go, little book, and wish to all Flowers in the garden, meat in the hall, A bin of wine, a spice of wit, A house with lawns enclosing it, A living river by the door, A nightingale in the sycamore
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94) Scottish Novelist
Water for oxen, wine for kings.
—Spanish Proverb
Wine improves with age – I like it the older I get.
—Anonymous
Oh some are fond of Spanish wine, and some are fond of French.
—John Masefield (1878–1967) English Poet, Novelist, Playwright
I was going home two hours ago, but was met by Mr. Griffith, who has kept me ever since… . I will come within a pint of wine.
—Richard Steele (1672–1729) Irish Writer, Politician
For a bad night, a mattress of wine
—Spanish Proverb
To happy convents, bosomed deep in vines, Where slumber abbots, purple as their wines.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
I may not here omit those two main plagues and common dotages of human kind, wine and women, which have infatuated and besotted myriads of people; they go commonly together.
—Robert Burton (1577–1640) English Scholar, Clergyman
Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter. Sermons and soda water the day after.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry; but money answereth all things.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse – and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness –
And Wilderness is Paradise endow.
—Omar Khayyam (1048–1123) Persian Mathematician
Drink wine in winter for cold, and in summer for heat.
—Anonymous
Mr. Tulkinghorn sits at one of the open windows, enjoying a bottle of old port. Though a hard-grained man, close, dry, and silent, he can enjoy old wine with the best. He has a priceless bin of port in some artful cellar under the Fields, which is one of his many secrets. When he dines alone in chambers, as he has dined to-day, and has his bit of fish and his steak or chicken brought in from the coffee-house, he descends with a candle to the echoing regions below the deserted mansion, and, heralded by the remote reverberation of thundering doors, comes gravely back, encircled by an earthy atmosphere and carrying a bottle from which he pours a radiant nectar, two score and ten years old, that blushes in the glass to find itself so famous, and fills the whole room with the fragrance of southern grapes.
—Charles Dickens (1812–70) English Novelist
I have lived temperately … I double the doctors recommendation of a glass and a half of wine a day and even treble it with a friend.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
Take counsel in wine, but resolve afterwards in water.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
A man, fallen on hard times, sold his art collection but kept his wine cellar. When asked why he did not sell his wine, he said, “A man can live without art, but not without culture”.
—Anonymous
Wine and youth are fire upon fire.
—Henry Fielding (1707–54) English Novelist, Dramatist
I struck the board, and cried, No more:
I will abroad.
What? shall I ever sigh and pine?
My lines and life are free; free as the road,
Loose as the wind, as large as store.
Shall I be still in suit?
Have I no harvest but a thorn
To let me blood, and not restore
What I have lost with cordial fruit?
Sure there was wine
Before my sighs did dry it; there was corn
Before my tears did drown it;
Is the year only lost to me?
Have I no bays to crown it?
—George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh Anglican Poet, Orator, Clergyman
When men drink, then they are rich and successful and win lawsuits and are happy and help their friends. Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever.
—Aristophanes (447–386 BCE) Greek Comic Playwright
The cheapness of wine seems to be a cause, not of drunkenness, but of sobriety. …People are seldom guilty of excess in what is their daily fare…On the contrary, in the countries which, either from excessive heat or cold, produce no grapes, and where wine consequently is dear and a rarity, drunkenness is a common vice.
—George Goodman (b.1930) American Economist, Author
Good wine is a good familiar creature if it be well used.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Happiness is a wine of the rarest vintage, and seems insipid to a vulgar taste.
—Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) American-British Essayist, Bibliophile
Burgundy for Kings, Champagne for Duchesses, and claret for Gentlemen
—French Proverb
Taws Noah who first planted the vine and mended his morals by drinking its wine.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
There are no standards of taste in wine, cigars, poetry, prose, etc. Each man’s own taste is the standard, and a majority vote cannot decide for him or in any slightest degree affect the supremacy of his own standard
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
I rather like bad wine … one gets so bored with good wine.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
I have eaten your bread and salt.
I have drunk your water and wine.
The deaths ye died I have watched beside
And the lives ye led were mine.
—Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) British Children’s Books Writer, Short story, Novelist, Poet, Journalist
Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.
—Common Proverb
Drink wine, and you will sleep well. Sleep, and you will not sin. Avoid sin, and you will be saved. Ergo, drink wine and be saved
—German Proverb
The first glass for myself; the second for my friends; the third for good humor; and the fourth for mine enemies.
—William Temple (1881–1944) British Clergyman, Theologian
A vine bears three grapes, the first of pleasure, the second of drunkenness, and the third of repentance.
—Anacharsis (fl. 6th century BCE) Scythian Prince
Wine is bottled poetry.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94) Scottish Novelist
A sweetheart is a bottle of wine, a wife is a wine bottle.
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) French Poet, Art Critic, Essayist, Translator
Presenting the cork is wine nonsense, a ritual invented by captains and sommeliers. The wine snob does not resent ritual. There is infinite ritual in the etiquette of serving wine. But most of it at least hints at style or purpose. Placing an unsightly cork on the tablecloth hints at absurdity.
—Leonard Bernstein (1918–90) American Composer, Conductor
This bread I break was once the oat, This wine upon a foreign tree Plunged in its fruit; Man in the day or wind at night Laid the crops low, broke the grape’s joy.
—Dylan Thomas (1914–53) Welsh Poet, Author
When the wine is in, the wit is out.
—Common Proverb