Sober Quotes - Page 17

• I got sober when I was 22 years old.

  Philip Seymour Hoffman

  Years

  "Philip Seymour Hoffman: Life, work and demons". "60 Minutes", www.cbsnews.com. February 9, 2014.

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• Lastly, literature and philosophy both allow past idols to be resurrected with a frequency which would be truly distressing to a sober scientist.

  Morris Raphael Cohen

  Philosophy, Past, Idols

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• It is not consistent with truth that a man should sacrifice half of his stomach only to God-that he should be sober in drinking, but intemperate in eating. Your belly is your God, your liver is your temple, your paunch is your altar, the cook is your priest, and the fat steam is your Holy Spirit; the seasonings and the sauces are your chrisms, and your belchings are your prophesizing...[such] a grossly- feeding Christian is akin to lions and wolves rather than God. Our Lord Jesus called Himself Truth and not habit.

  Tertullian

  Christian, Jesus, Drinking

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• The real world is not easy to live in. It is rough; it is slippery. Without the most clear-eyed adjustments we fall and get crushed. A man must stay sober; not always, but most of the time.

  Clarence Day

  Life, Real, Fall

  1921 The Crow's Nest,'In His Baby Blue Ship'.

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• I was somewhat drunk with what I had done. And I am always one to prefer being sober.

  Gertrude Stein

  Drunk, Done, Being Sober

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• Last time I was sober, man I felt bad,
  Worst hangover that I ever had.
  It took six hamburgers, Scotch all night,
  Nicotine for breakfast just to put me right.

  Mark Knopfler

  Drinking, Hangover, Night

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• It looks different when you're sober; I thought I had twice as much furniture.

  Neil Simon

  Drinking, Home, House

  Neil Simon (1971). “The gingerbread lady: a new play”, Samuel French, Inc.

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• I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and, perhaps, the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind, by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that whatsoever might be the future date of my History, the life of the historian must be short and precarious.

  Edward Gibbon

  Taken, Future, Recovery

  'Memoirs of My Life' (1796) ch. 8 (on the completion of 'Decline and Fall')

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• Come, don't be in a fright, but put on your clothes, and I'll let you into a secret. You must know that I am Captain of this ship now, and this is my cabin, therefore you must walk out. I am bound to Madagascar, with a design of making my own fortune, and that of all the brave fellows joined with me...if you have a mind to make one of us, we will receive you, and if you'll turn sober, and mind your business, perhaps in time I may make you one of my Lieutenants, if not, here's a boat alongside and you shall be set ashore.

  Henry Every

  Clothes, Design, Pirate

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• Did some more sober critics come abroad? If wrong, I smil'd; if right, I kiss'd the rod.

  Alexander Pope

  Kissing, Criticism, Critics

  Alexander Pope (1778). “The works of Alexander Pope, Esq: In four volumes complete. With his last corrections, additions, and improvements. Carefully collated and compared with former editions: together with notes from the various critics and commentators”, p.7

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• Puddleglum,' they've said, 'You're altogether too full of bobance and bounce and high spirits. You've got to learn that life isn't all fricasseed frogs and ell pie. You want something to sober you down a bit. We're only saying it for your own good, Puddleglum.' That's what they say. Now a job like this --a journey up north just as winter's beginning looking for a prince that probably isn't there, by way of ruined city nobody's ever seen-- will be just the thing. If that doesn't steady a chap, I don't know what will.

  C. S. Lewis

  Jobs, Winter, Journey

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• The sober people of America are weary of the fluctuating policy which has directed the public councils. They have seen with regret and indignation that sudden changes and legislative interferences, in cases affecting personal rights, become jobs in the hands of enterprising and influential speculators, and snares to the more-industrious and less informed part of the community. They have seen, too, that one legislative interference is but the first link of a long chain of repetitions, every subsequent interference being naturally produced by the effects of the preceding.

  James Madison

  Trust, Jobs, Regret

  Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2017). “The Origin of the Nation: Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights and Other Amendments, Federalist Papers & Common Sense: Creating America - Landmark Documents that Shaped a New Nation”, p.266, Madison & Adams Press

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• In Hamburg the waiters always had Preludin - and various other pills, but I remember Preludin because it was such a big trip - and they were all taking these pills to keep themselves awake, to work these incredible hours in this all-night place. And so the waiters, when they'd see the musicians falling over with tiredness or with drink, they'd give you the pill. You'd take the pill, you'd be talking, you'd sober up, you could work almost endlessly - until the pill wore off, then you'd have to have another.

  John Lennon

  Fall, Night, Sober Up

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• Every person born into the world represents something new, something that never existed before, something original and unique....If there had been someone like her in the world, there would have been no need for her to be born." --Martin Buber as quoted in Narrative Means for Sober Ends, by Jon Diamond, p.78

  Martin Buber

  Mean, Unique, Needs

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• If the [Vestiges] be true, the labours of sober induction are in vain; religion is a lie; human law is a mass of folly, and a base injustice; morality is moonshine; our labours for the black people of Africa were works of madmen; and man and woman are only better beasts!

  Adam Sedgwick

  Lying, Science, Men

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• I think that there are many different ways of getting and staying sober. Like religion, I just don't think that one way is the only way.

  Kristen Johnston

  Thinking, Different, Way

  Kristen Johnston (2012). “Guts: The Endless Follies and Tiny Triumphs of a Giant Disaster”, p.237, Simon and Schuster

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• As a historian I understand how histories are written. My enemies will write histories that dismiss me and prove I was unimportant. My friends will write histories that glorify me and prove I was more important than I was. And two generations or three from now, some serious sober historian will write a history that sort of implies I was whoever I was.

  Newt Gingrich

  Writing, Two, Enemy

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• The framers of the Constitution realized that . . . there needed to be some guardian of the sober second thought, and so they created the Senate to fulfill that high and vitally important duty.

  Elihu Root

  Political, Important, Constitution

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• German poetry is going in a very different direction from French poetry.... Its language has become more sober, more factual. It distrusts "beauty." It tries to be truthful.

  Paul Celan

  Beauty, Truth, Poetry

  Paul Celan, Rosemarie Waldrop (2003). “Collected Prose”, p.15, Psychology Press

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• Wall Street got drunk and now it's got a hangover. And the question is, how long will it sober up and not try to do those fancy financial instruments?

  George W. Bush

  Business, Wall, Hangover

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• Learn to live well, or fairly make your will;
  You've play'd, and lov'd, and ate, and drank your fill:
  Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age
  Comes titt'ring on, and shoves you from the stage.

  Alexander Pope

  Life, Play, Age

  Alexander Pope, William Warburton (Bp. of Gloucester), Colley Cibber (1804). “The poetical works of Alexander Pope: with his last corrections, additions and improvements”, p.105

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• People would read all kinds of reaction into it, but Tracy told me himself that half the time he was just standing very still, trying to look sober and composed. That takes nothing away from him. The fact he got away with it was a tribute to his talent.

  Cesar Romero

  People, Trying, Looks

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• And as, when all the summer trees are seen So bright and green, The Holly leaes a sober hue display Less bright than they, But when the bare and wintry woods we see, What then so cheerful as the Holly-tree?

  Robert Southey

  Summer, Tree, Hollies

  Robert Southey (1866). “The Poetical Works of Robert Southey: Complete in One Volume”, p.129

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• While all the future, for thy purer soul,
  With "sober certainties" of love is blest.

  William Wordsworth

  Life, Love Is, Soul

  William Wordsworth (1837). “The Complete Poetical Works of William Wordsworth: Together with a Description of the Country of the Lakes in the North of England, Now First Published with His Works ...”, p.70

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• That whole week, we started to divide things into those two categories: anything or something. A piece of jewelry bougth at a department store: anything. A piece of jewelry made by hand: something. A dollar: anything. A sand dollar: something. A gift certificate: anything. An IOU for two hours of starwatching: something. A drunk kiss at a party: anything. A sober kiss alone in a park: something.

  David Levithan

  Party, Kissing, Hands

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