Henry W. Blair Quotes

[Referring to alcohol:] After the lapse of nearly fifty years of undisputed political freedom, the blood-freezing clank of a cruel bondage is still heard.

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

I am the sworn, eternal and uncompromising enemy of the liquor traffic.

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

The speech of a Creek—Indian, against the immoderate use of spirituous liquors. Delivered in a national assembly of the Creeks, upon the breaking out of the late war.

In his personal habits, Mr. Lincoln is as simple as a child…his food is plain and nutritious. He never drinks intoxicating liquors of any sort… He is not addicted to tobacco.

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

There is held to be no surer test of civilization than the increase per head of the consumption of alcohol and tobacco. Yet alcohol and tobacco are recognizable poisons, so that their consumption has only to be carried far enough to destroy civilization altogether.

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.

This is not a prohibitive society. We're not going to tell people they can't smoke. We learned that we can't tell people they can't drink.

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.

Prohibition is the greatest effort for human advancement and betterment ever attempted in history

Lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine.

Mrs. Hayes has been from childhood a total abstainer. I was not a total abstainer when I became President. But the discussions which arose over the change at the President's house soon satisfied me that in this matter, if our example was to be useful, there was no half-way house for me. During the greater part of my term and at least for the last three years, I have been in practice and in theory a total-abstinence man, and I shall continue to be so. All statements inconsistent with the foregoing are without foundation.

That is one advantage of our time; in the highest office of the Reich we have the example of a simple and modest alcohol-and nicotine-free way of life

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 won't touch alcohol.

I work very hard to keep on an even keel as far as alcohol is concerned.

I never had one beer. If I bought a six-pack of beer, I kept drinking till all six beers were gone. You have to have that kind of understanding about yourself. I haven't had a drink now in 12 years.

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

I only drank for three years of my life, but I drank enough in those three years to last me the rest of my life... It's a religious thing.

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

So I did quit coffee and I did quit smoking. But I haven't managed that with drinking!

Of all vices, drinking is the most incompatible with greatness.