Tea Sayings

As there seem to be very few tea threads on here, I'm going to post up a few famous quotations extolling the virtues of the steeped herb to redress the balance somewhat:

Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea. ~Henry Fielding, "Love in Several Masques"

Tea is drunk to forget the din of the world. ~T'ien Yiheng

There is a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims

Strange how a teapot can represent at the same time the comforts of solitude and the pleasures of company. ~Author Unknown

Each cup of tea represents an imaginary voyage. ~Catherine Douzel

Drinking a daily cup of tea will surely starve the apothecary. ~Chinese Proverb

There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be much diminished by a nice cup of tea. ~Bernard-Paul Heroux

If you are cold, tea will warm you. If you are too heated, it will cool you. If you are depressed, it will cheer you. If you are excited, it will calm you. ~Gladstone, 1865

The mere chink of cups and saucers tunes the mind to happy repose. ~George Gissing, The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft

If man has no tea in him, he is incapable of understanding truth and beauty. ~Japanese Proverb

Find yourself a cup of tea; the teapot is behind you. Now tell me about hundreds of things. ~Saki

Great love affairs start with Champagne and end with tisane. ~Honoré de Balzac

Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves - slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future. ~Thich Nat Hahn

Tea...is a religion of the art of life. ~Okakura

The first cup moistens my lips and throat. The second cup breaks my loneliness. The third cup searches my barren entrail but to find therein some thousand volumes of odd ideographs. The fourth cup raises a slight perspiration - all the wrongs of life pass out through my pores. At the fifth cup I am purified. The sixth cup calls me to the realms of the immortals. The seventh cup - ah, but I could take no more! I only feel the breath of the cool wind that raises in my sleeves. Where is Elysium? Let me ride on this sweet breeze and waft away thither. ~Lu Tung, "Tea-Drinking"

The best quality tea must have creases like the leathern boot of Tartar horsemen, curl like the dewlap of a mighty bullock, unfold like a mist rising out of a ravine, gleam like a lake touched by a zephyr, and be wet and soft like a fine earth newly swept by rain. ~Lu Yu

Top off the tea... it lubricates the grey matter. ~Good Neighbors

As the centerpiece of a cherished ritual, it's a talisman against the chill of winter, a respite from the ho-hum routine of the day. ~Sarah Engler, "Tea Up," Real Simple magazine, February 2006

It is very strange, this domination of our intellect by our digestive organs. We cannot work, we cannot think, unless our stomach wills so. It dictates to us our emotions, our passions. After eggs and bacon it says, "Work!" After beefsteak and porter, it says, "Sleep!" After a cup of tea (two spoonfuls for each cup, and don't let it stand for more than three minutes), it says to the brain, "Now rise, and show your strength. Be eloquent, and deep, and tender; see, with a clear eye, into Nature, and into life: spread your white wings of quivering thought, and soar, a god-like spirit, over the whirling world beneath you, up through long lanes of flaming stars to the gates of eternity!" ~Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat

Tea is instant wisdom - just add water! ~Astrid Alauda

Tea! thou soft, thou sober, sage, and venerable liquid,... thou female tongue-running, smile-smoothing, heart-opening, wind-tippling cordial, to whose glorious insipidity I owe the happiest moment of my life, let me fall prostrate. ~Colley Cibber, Lady's Last Stake

You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me. ~C.S. Lewis