Samuel Johnson Quotes About Wine

• One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

  Samuel Johnson

  Mistake, Drinking, Food

  "Life of Samuel Johnson". Book by James Boswell. Volume II, p. 659, 1791.

• Wine gives a man nothing... it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.

  Samuel Johnson

  Drinking, Wine, Men

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

  Samuel Johnson

  Wine, Evil, Giving

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1866). “The Life of Samuel Johnson”, p.220

• Wine makes a man better pleased with himself. I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others.

  Samuel Johnson

  Happiness, Drinking, Wine

  "The Table Talk of Dr. Johnson: Comprising Opinions and Anecdotes of Life and Literature, Men, Manners, and Morals".

• Sir, I did not count your glasses of wine, why should you number up my cups of tea?

  Samuel Johnson

  Wine, Glasses, Numbers

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1799). “Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides and Johnson's Diary of a Journey Into North Wales”, p.363

• Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.

  Samuel Johnson

  Drinking, Food, Hero

  In James Boswell 'The Life of Samuel Johnson' (1791) vol. 3, p. 381 (7 April 1779)

• He who aspires to be a serious wine drinker must drink claret.

  Samuel Johnson

  Wine, Serious, Drink

• He said that few people had intellectual resources sufficient to forgo the pleasures of wine. They could not otherwise contrive how to fill the interval between dinner and supper.

  Samuel Johnson

  Wine, People, Intellectual

• 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.

  Samuel Johnson

  Drinking, Wine, Men

  Samuel Johnson (1807). “Dr. Johnson's Table-talk: Containing Aphorisms on Literature, Life, and Manners, with Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons, Selected and Arranged from Mr. Boswell's Life of Johnson”, p.42

• Before dinner men meet with great inequality of understanding; and those who are conscious of their inferiority have the modesty not to talk; when they have drunk wine, every man feels himself happy, and loses that modesty, and grows impudent and vociferous; but he is not improved; he is only not sensible of his defects.

  Samuel Johnson

  Wine, Men, Drunk

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1859). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Including a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides”, p.64

• It is more reasonable to wish for reputation while it may be enjoyed, as Anacreon calls upon his companions to give him for present use the wine and garlands which they propose to bestow upon his tomb.

  Samuel Johnson

  Wine, Giving, Wish

• In Shakespeare's plays, the mourner hastening to bury his friend is all the time colliding with the reveller hastening to his wine.

  Samuel Johnson

  Wine, Play, Shakespeare's Plays

• Wine gives a man nothing. It neither gives him knowledge nor wit; it only animates a man, and enables him to bring out what a dread of the company has repressed. It only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.

  Samuel Johnson

  Drinking, Food, Wine

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1866). “The Life of Samuel Johnson”, p.220

• Wine gives great pleasure, and every pleasure is of itself a good. and
  A man should cultivate his mind so as to have that confidence and readiness without wine, which wine gives.

  Samuel Johnson

  Wine, Men, Giving

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1866). “The Life of Samuel Johnson”, p.220

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