Beer Speaks. People Mumble.

This quote is used with the kind permission of Tony McGee, owner of Lagunitas Brewing Co. in Petaluma, California. Tony used this quote on the label of one of his beers, and I’ve loved it ever since I first laid on eyes on it.

More Beer Quotes

“There are two reasons for drinking:
one is when you are thirsty, to cure it;
the other, when you are not thirsty,
to prevent it.”

— Thomas Love Peacock, Melincourt, 1817

“Ah, beer. The cause of and the solution to all of life’s problems.”

— Homer Simpson

“I feel sorry for those who don’t drink because when they get up in the morning that’s as good as they’re going to feel all day.”

— Frank Sinatra

“I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer.”

— Homer Simpson

“Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”

— Benjamin Franklin

“He was a wise man who invented beer.”

— Plato

“The church is near,but the road is icy.
The bar is far away,but I will walk carefully.”

— Russian proverb

“Drink! for you know not when you came, nor why;
Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.”

— Omar Khayyan, The Rubiay’at

“One drink is just right,two are too many,
three too few”

— Spanish saying

“Here’s to long life and a merry one.
A quick death and an easy one.
A pretty girl and an honest one.
A cold beer — and another one!”

— Irish Toast

“You from within our glasses, you lusty golden brew, whoever imbibes takes fire from you. The young and the old sing your praises. Here’s to beer, here’s to cheer, here’s to beer.”

— Bedrich Smetana, The Bartered Bride

“Nothing ever tasted better than a cold beer on a beautiful afternoon with nothing to look forward to than more of the same.”

— Hugh Hood

“You can’t be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline — it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.”

— Frank Zappa

“Do not cease to drink beer, to eat, to intoxicate thyself, to make love, and celebrate the good days.”

— Ancient Egyptian saying

“Beer is the center of everything. Everything revolves around beer. When you drink beer, everything revolves. Therefore beer is the center of everything.”

— University of Waterloo Engineers

“Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer.”

— Dave Barry

“Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.”

— Ernest Hemingway

“Sometimes when I reflect back on all the beer I drink I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn’t drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, “It is better that I drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver.”

— Jack Handy

“History flows forward in rivers of beer.”

— Anonymous

“An alcoholic is someone you don’t like who drinks just as much as you do.”

— Dylan Thomas

“Work is the curse of the drinking classes.”

— Oscar Wilde

“Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza.”

— Dave Barry

“Blessed is the mother who gives birth to a brewer.”

— Czech saying

“Say for what were hopyards meant.
Or why was Burton built on Trent?
Oh many a peer of English Brews
Livelier liquor than the muse,
And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God’s ways to man.
Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink
For fellows whom it hurts to think.”

— A.E. Housman

“Wherever beer is brewed, all is well-wherever beer is drunk, life is good.”

— Czech proverb

“Fermentation and civilization are inseparable.”

— John Ciardi

“Our lager,
Which art in barrels,
Hallowed be thy drink,
Thy will be drunk,
(I will be drunk),
At home as I am in the tavern.
Give us this day our foamy head,
And forgive us our spillages,
As we forgive those who spill against us,
and lead us not to incarceration,
But deliver us from hangovers,
For thine is the beer,
The bitter and the lager,
Forever and ever,
Barmen.”

— The Beer Prayer

“Give me a woman who loves beer and I will conquer the world.”

— Kaiser Welhelm

“[I recommend]… bread, meat, vegetables and beer.”

— Sophocles (on his philosophy of a moderate diet)

“This is grain, which any fool can eat, but for which the Lord intended a more divine means of consumption… Beer!”

— Friar Tuck, in the film Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves

“You’re not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.”

— Dean Martin

“Whoever serves beer or wine watered down, he himself deserves in them to drown.”

— Medieval plea for pure libations

“Why is American beer served cold?
So you can tell it from urine.”

— David Moulton

“I drink to make other people interesting.”

— George Jean Nathan

“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts, and beer.”

— Abraham Lincoln

“They who drink beer will think beer.”

— Washington Irving

“If you ever reach total enlightenment while drinking beer, I bet it makes beer shoot out your nose.”

— Jack Handy, Deep Thoughts

“An oppressive government is more to be feared than a tiger, or a beer.”

— Confucius

“The roots and herbes beaten and put into new ale or beer and daily drunk, cleareth, strengtheneth and quickeneth the sight of the eyes.”

— Nicholas Culpeper

“Oh, lager beer! It makes good cheer, And proves the poor man’s worth; It cools the body through and through, and regulates the health.”

— Anonymous

“A quart of ale is a dish for a king.”

— William Shakespeare, A Winter’s Tale

“A good local pub has much in common with a church, except that a pub is warmer, and there’s more conversation.”

— William Blake, (1757 – 1827)

“It is my design to die in the brew-house;
let ale be placed to my mouth when I am expiring,
that when the choirs of angels come,
they may say, ‘Be God propitious to this drinker.’”

— Saint Columbanus, 612 C.E.

“From man’s sweat and God’s love, beer came into the world.”

— Saint Arnoldus

“God made yeast, as well as dough, and loves fermentation just as dearly as he loves vegetation.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The Puritanical nonsense of excluding children and therefore to some extent women from pubs has turned these places into mere boozing shops instead of the family gathering places that they ought to be.”

— George Orwell

“Beer makes you feel the way you ought to feel without beer.”

— Henry Lawson

“Wine is but single broth, ale is meat, drink, and cloth.”

— English Proverb, from the 16th Century

“Life, alas, is very drear. Up with the glass! Down with the beer!”

— Louis Untermeyer, 1885-1977

“Beer that is not drunk had missed its vocation.”

— Meyer Breslau, 1880

“I would give all my fame for a pot of ale and safety.”

— William Shakespeare, Henry V

“Do not cease to drink beer, to eat, to intoxicate thyself, to make love, and to celebrate the good days.”

— Ancient Egyptian Credo

“There can’t be good living where there is not good drinking.”

— Ben Franklin

“You sit back in the darkness, nursing your beer, breathing in that ineffable aroma of the old-time saloon: dark wood, spilled beer, good cigars, and ancient whiskey – the sacred incense of the drinking man.”

— Bruce Aidells

“Beer, if drunk in moderation, softens the temper, cheers the spirit and promotes health.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“Beer does not make itself properly by itself. It takes an element of mystery and of things that no one can understand.”

— Fritz Maytag

“There is more to life than beer alone, but beer makes those other things even better.”

— Stephen Morris

“Back and side go bare, go bare,
both foot and hand go cold;
but, belly, God send thee good ale enough,
whether it be new or old.”

— Bishop John Still

“A little bit of beer is divine medicine.”

— Paracelsus, Greek physician

Three jolly coachmen
sat in a Bristol Tavern,
and they decided,
to have another flagon.

Landlord fill the flowing bowl,
until it doth run over.
For tonight we’ll merry, merry be.
Tomorrow we’ll be sober.

Here’s to the man who drinks small beer,
and goes to bed quite sober.
Fades as the leaves do fade,
and drop off in October.

Here’s to the man who drinks strong ale,
and goes to bed quite mellow.
Lives as he ought to live,
and dies a jolly good fellow

Here’s to the girl who steals a kiss,
and runs to tell her mother.
She’s a very foolish thing.
She’ll never get another.

Here’s to the girl who steals a kiss,
and runs back for another.
She’s a boon to all mankind.
Very soon she’ll be a mother.

If I had another brick,
I’d build by chimney higher.
It would stop my neighbour’s cat,
from pissing on my fire.

Come, into the garden Maude,
and don’t be so particular.
If the grass is cold and damp,
We’ll do it perpendicular.

Landlord fill the flowing bowl,
until it doth run over.
For tonight we’ll merry, merry be.
Tomorrow we’re Hungover.

— Old English folk song

“The mouth of perfectly happy man is filled with beer.”

— Egyptian proverb

“Many battles have been fought and won by soldiers nourished on beer.”

— Frederick the Great

“Beer … a high and mighty liquor.”

— Julius Caeser

“A meal of bread, cheese and beer constitutes the perfect food.”

— Queen Elizabeth I

“He that drinketh strong beer and goes to bed right mellow, lives as he ought to live and dies a hearty fellow.”

— Anonymous

“It’s a fair wind that blew men to ale.”

— Washington Irving

“Tis hard to tell which is best: music, food, beer or rest.”

— Anonymous

“The culture of the hop … so analagous to the culture and uses of the grape, may afford a theme for future poets.”

— Henry David Thoreau

“God made yeast, as well as dough, and loves fermentation just as dearly as he loves vegetation.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Did you ever taste beer?”
“I had a sip of it once.,” said the servant.
“Here’s a state of things!”! cried Mr. Swiveller ….
“She never tasted it — it can’t be tasted in a sip!

— Charles Dickens

“It takes beer to make a thirst worthwhile.”

— German saying

“Beer is an improvement on water itself.”

— Grant Johnson

“A fine beer may be judged with only one sip, but it’s better to be thoroughly sure.”

— Bohemian proverb

“Here’s to the heart that fills as the bottle empties.”

— Anonymous

“Drunkenness does not create vice; it merely brings it into view.”

— Seneca

“The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour.”

— William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience

“I went on a diet, swore off drinking and heavy eating, and in fourteen days I lost two weeks.”

— Joe E. Lewis

“As to the way of life of the English, they are somewhat impolite, for they belch at the table without shame. They consume great quantities of beer.”

— Father Etienne Perlin, 1558

“The good Lord has changed water into wine, so how can drinking beer be a sin?”

— Sign near a Belgian Monastery

“Religions change, but beer and wine remain.”

— Harvey Allen

“Here with my beer I sit, while golden moments flit: alas! They pass unheeded by: and as they fly, I, being dry, sit idly sipping here, my beer.”

— George Arnold

“But leave me to my beer! Gold is dross, love is loss, so if I gulp my sorrows down, or see them drown in foamy draughts of old nut-brown, then I do wear the crown, without the cross!”

— George Arnold

“I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.”

— Brendan Behan

“Some people wanted champagne and caviar when they should have had beer and hot dogs.”

— Dwight D. Eisenhower

“In a study, scientists report that drinking beer can be good for the liver. I’m sorry, did I say ‘scientists’? I meant Irish people.’”

— Tina Fey

“Oh I have been to Ludlow fair, and left my necktie God knows where. And carried half way home, or near, pints and quarts of Ludlow beer.”

— Alfred Edward Housman

“I work until beer o’clock.”

— Stephen King

“Beer makes you feel the way you ought to feel without beer.”

— Henry Lawson

“I am very picky about my people and my beer.”

— Shelby Lynne

“Beer, it’s the best damn drink in the world.”

— Jack Nicholson

“In my opinion, most of the great men of the past were only there for the beer – the wealth, prestige and grandeur that went with the power.”

— A.J.P. Taylor

“For drink, there was beer which was very strong when not mingled with water, but was agreeable to those who were used to it. They drank this with a reed, out of the vessel that held the beer, upon which they saw the barley swim.”

— Xenophon, 430-357 BCE

“Or merry swains, who quaff the nut-brown ale, and sing enamoured of the nut-brown maid.”

— James Beattie

“I have fed purely upon ale; I have eat my ale, drank my ale, and I always sleep upon ale.”

— George Farquhar

“The troubles of our proud and angry dust are from eternity, and shall not fail. Bear them we can, and if we can we must. Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale. ”

— A.E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad, 1896

“When the pilgrims, seeking religious freedom, landed at Plymouth rock, the first permanent building put up was the brewery.”

— Jim West

“A man can hide all things, excepting twain – That he is drunk, and that he is in love.”

— Antiphanes, 408-344 BCE

“The best audience is intelligent, well-educated and a little drunk.”

— Alben W. Barkley

“To get enough to eat was regarded as an achievement. To get drunk was a victory.”

— Brendan Behan

“I think a man ought to get drunk at least twice a year just on principle, so he won’t let himself get snotty about it.”

— Raymond Chandler

“I prefer to think that God is not dead, just drunk.”

— John Huston

“The difference between a drunk and a alcoholic is that a drunk doesn’t have to attend all those meetings.”

— Arthur Lewis

“The worst thing about some men is that when they are not drunk they are sober.”

— William Butler Yeats

“Drinking when we are not thirsty and making love at all seasons, madam: that is all there is to distinguish us from other animals.”

— Pierre de Beaumarchais

“Who-ever makes a poor beer is tranferred to the dung hill.”

— City of Danzig edict, 11th Century

“The tavern will compare favorably with the church.”

— Henry David Thoreau

“Ideally, brewers interpret history, and through science they create art.”

— Don Spencer, Silver City Brewery

“There’s damsels in distress out there, and we got all this beer.”

— Jimmy Buffett