How Many Drinks Is Too Many? Counting Alcohol Quotations
One glass is wholesome,
Two glasses toothsome,
Three glasses blithesome,
Four glasses fulsome,
Five glasses noisome,
Six glasses quarrelsome,
Seven glasses darksome.
~A Book of Old Songs, Healths, Toasts, Sentiments, and Wise Sayings Pertaining to the Bond of Good Fellowship, 1901 ["after Charles Lamb"
Olivia: What's a drunken man like, fool?
Feste: Like a drowned man, a fool and a mad man: one draught above heat makes him a fool; the second mads him; and a third drowns him.
Olivia: Go thou and seek the crowner, and let him sit o' my coz; for he's in the third degree of drink, he's drowned: go, look after him.
Feste: He is but mad yet, madonna; and the fool shall look to the madman.
~William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, c.1599
The cocktail is a pleasant drink;
It's mild and harmless — I don't think!
When you've had one, you call for two,
And then you don't care what you do.
Last night I hoisted twenty-three
Of those arrangements into me.
My wealth increased, I swelled with pride,
I was pickled, primed, and ossified;
But R-E-M-O-R-S-E!
The water wagon is the place for me.
I think that somewhere in the game
I wept and told my maiden name.
At four I sought my whirling bed;
At eight I woke with such a head!...
The world was one kaleidoscope
Of purple bliss, transcendent hope...
Those dry Martinis did the work for me;
Last night at twelve I felt immense,
To-day I feel like thirty cents.
My eyes are bleared, my coppers hot,
I'll try to eat, but I cannot.
It is no time for mirth and laughter,
The cold, gray dawn of the morning after!
~George Ade, "R-E-M-O-R-S-E," The Sultan of Sulu, 1903
Know thyself, especially thyself after a third drink. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Three cups of wine a prudent man may take;
The first of these for constitution's sake;
The second to the girl he loves the best;
The third and the last to lull him to his rest,
Then home to bed! — but if a fourth he pours,
That is the cup of folly and not ours;
Loud noisy talking on the fifth attends;
The sixth breeds feuds and falling-out of friends;
Seven beget blows and faces stain'd with gore;
Eight, and the watch-patrole breaks ope the door;
Mad with the ninth, another cup goes round,
And the swill'd sot drops senseless to the ground.
~Eubulus (4th century BCE), The Cup Bearers, quoted by Richard Cumberland
One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor! ~Author unknown
A vine bears three bunches of grapes. The first, the bunch of pleasure; the second, that of drunkenness; the third, that of disgust. ~Anacharsis, early 6th century BCE, paraphrase by Diogenes Laërtius,
The first glass is a sedative, the second a psychologist, the third glass an excuse, and the fourth a lobotomy. ~Terri Guillemets, "2int0x1c4t3d," 1996
One is all right, two is too many, three is not enough. ~James Thurber, 1960
When I have one martini, I feel bigger, wiser, taller. When I have a second, I feel superlative. When I have more, there's no holding me. ~William Faulkner
To say that we should not change our drinks is heresy; the tongue becomes saturated, and after the third glass yields but an obtuse sensation. ~Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste; or, Transcendental Gastronomy, 1825, translated by Fayette Robinson, 1854
A few drams make a drunkard, a few drunkards make a dram-shop, and many dram-shops damn a nation. ~James Lendall Basford (1845–1915), Seven Seventy Seven Sensations, 1897
In the first Warmth of our Liquor, we begin to have an Opinion of our Wit; the next Degree of Heat gives us an Opinion of our Courage. ~Sententiæ Selectæ, compiled by Edward Curray, 1732
Have your final drink first — and then stop. ~Terri Guillemets, "Advice," 1994