Lapham’s Quarterly

I have sometimes thought that the laws ought not to punish those actions of evil which are committed when the senses are steeped in intoxication.

Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need—a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.

Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times and in all countries, called in some physical aid to their moral consolations—wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco.

My advice to people today is as follows: if you take the game of life seriously, if you take your nervous system seriously, if you take your sense organs seriously, if you take the energy process seriously, you must turn on, tune in, and drop out.

Modern life is often a mechanical oppression, and liquor is the only mechanical relief.

An old man is twice a child, and so is a drunken man.

Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences.

Abstainer, n. A weak man who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.

There are two things that will be believed of any man whatsoever, and one of them is that he has taken to drink.

Moderation in all things.