William Butler Yeats Quotes

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

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

When people ask me if Dean Martin drank, let me put it this way. If Dracula bit Dean in the neck, he'd get a Bloody Mary.

It's not a crime to get drunk.

If merely 'feeling good' could decide, drunkenness would be the supremely valid human experience.

I've been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.

Wine is a mocker, strong drink is riotous; and whoever is deceived by it is not wise

Drunkenness excuseth no vice.

[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.

... the sin of drunkenness which is the root of all sins.

No nation is drunken where wine is cheap; and none sober where the dearness of wine substitutes ardent spirits as the common beverage. It is, in truth, the only antidote to the bane of whiskey.

Drunkenness, which we have therefore in the last place numbred among the breaches of the Naturall Law, because it hinders the use of right Reason

If you are to be employed by the BBC, you must promise not to get drunk…. You look as if you will be washed out of poetry by whisky.

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.

If we could make men sober, we would have no slavery.

I'd love to see the world without liquor for a week.

Rum, n. Generically, fiery liquors that produce madness in total abstainers.

I have been brought up and trained to have the utmost contempt for people who get drunk.

All men, even those we call savages, have been so tormented by the passion for strong drinks, that limited as their capacities were, they were yet able to manufacture them.

It is not true that drink changes a man's character. It may reveal it more clearly.

Alcohol gives you infinite patience for stupidity.

Alcohol is like love. The first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine. After that you take the girl's clothes off.

It pays to get drunk with the best people.

Wine and women do not go with song. Alcohol is the worst enemy of the imagination.

I try not to drink too much because when I'm drunk, I bite.