Temperate temperance is best. Intemperate temperance injures the cause of temperance, while temperate temperance helps it in its fight against intemperate intemperance. Fanatics will never learn that, though it be written in letters of gold across the sky.
- Notebook, 1896

You remember the pious girl who said, "I found that my ribbons and gew-gaws were dragging me down to hell, and so I took them off and gave them to my sister." Well that is the way we are doing....We found that beer drinkers were debauching our morals, and so we concluded to turn them over to our neighbor.
- Letter to San Francisco Alta California, dated May 18, 1867; published June 23, 1867

The system of refusing the mere act of drinking and leaving the desire in full force, is unintelligent war tactics, it seems to me.
- Following the Equator

Also see Prohibition