Quotes from famous people about wine and its role in our lives

In a previous post on Interesting wine quotes from famous people, I collated three dozen quotations from over the past three millennia. It was apparently quite a popular post, as I tried to pick ones that are cheering. So, here I add another three dozen. This time I also include quotes from people born after 1900, and also a few from less famous people.

• “Good company, good wine, good welcome can make good people.” ― William Shakespeare (1564—1616) [Henry VIII, Act I, Scene iv]
  
• “My nose itched, and I knew I should drink wine or kiss a fool.” ― Jonathan Swift (1667—1745)
• “Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards; there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy.” ― Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790)
• “In life, as with wines, you have to appreciate the journey as much as the destination.” ― Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
• “One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.” ― Samuel Johnson
• “Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others.” ― Samuel Johnson
• “I love everything that is old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wines.” — Oliver Goldsmith (1728—1774)
• “Wine cheers the sad, revives the old, inspires the young, and makes weariness forget his toil.” ― George Gordon Byron (Lord Byron) (1788—1824)
• “Wine is life. It's the union of the earth with the sun; it’s the essence of time captured in a bottle.” ― Victor Hugo (1802—1885)
• “Wine is the intellectual part of a meal while meat is the material.” ― Alexandre Dumas (1802―1870)
• “Better is old wine than new, and old friends like-wise.” ― Charles Kingsley (1819—1875)
• “One not only drinks wine, one smells it, observes it, tastes it, sips it and — one talks about it.” — Albert Edward of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (King Edward VII) (1841—1910)
• “A bottle of good wine, like a good act, shines ever in the retrospect.” ― Robert Louis Stevenson (1850—1894)
• “Just as the best wines undergo fermentation, life’s challenges refine us into our best selves.” ― Robert Louis Stevenson
• “Alcohol is the anaesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.” ― George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)
• “Wine comes in at the mouth and love comes in at the eye; that’s all we shall know for truth before we grow old and die.” ― William Butler Yeats (1865—1939)
• “Gentlemen, in the little moment that remains to us between the crisis and the catastrophe, we may as well drink a glass of Champagne.” ― Paul Claudel (1868—1955)
• “Wine makes every meal an occasion, every table more elegant, every day more civilized.” ― André Simon (1877—1970)
• “How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?” ― Charles De Gaulle, President of France (1890—1970) *
• “I shall drink no wine before it’s time! OK, it’s time.” ― Groucho Marx (1890—1977)
• “Wine is the most civilized thing in the world, and one of the most natural things of the world that has been brought to the greatest perfection, and it offers a greater range for enjoyment and appreciation than, possibly, any other purely sensory thing.” ― Ernest Hemingway (1899—1961)
• “The connoisseur does not drink wine but tastes of its secrets.” ― Salvador Dalí (1904-1989)
• “If food is the body of good living, wine is its soul.” ― Clifton Fadiman (1904—1999)
• “A bottle of wine begs to be shared; I have never met a miserly wine lover.” ― Clifton Fadiman
• “There comes a time in every woman’s life when the only thing that helps is a glass of champagne.” ― Bette Davis (1908—1989)
• “Wine to me is passion. It’s family and friends. It’s warmth of heart and generosity of spirit.” ― Robert Mondavi (1913—2008)
• “Making good wine is a skill; making fine wine is an art.” ― Robert Mondavi
• “Alcohol may be man’s worst enemy, but the Bible says love your enemy.” ― Frank Sinatra (1915—1998)
• “The first kiss and the first glass of wine are the best.” — Marty Rubin (1930—1994)
• “Being a wine enthusiast means you care more about quality than quantity.” ― Jean-Claude Carrière (1931—2021)
• Age is just a number. It’s totally irrelevant unless, of course, you happen to be a bottle of wine.” ― Joan Collins (1933— )
• “We are all mortal until the first kiss and the second glass of wine.” ― Eduardo Galeano (1940—2015)
• “More important than the food pairing is the person with whom you drink the wine.” ― Christian Moueix (1946— )
• “Compromises are for relationships, not wine.” ― Robert Scott Caywood (1961—)
• “Wine is, perhaps, the closest thing the planet has to an elixir of life.” ― Thom Elkjer (1980— )
• “Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence.” ― Robert Fripp (1946— )

* Okay, so it is not exactly wine, although there the sentiment would be the same. Besides, de Gaulle’s estimate, made in 1962, was a lowball ― France boasts 1,000―1,600 varieties of cheese.