Wine for Elijah

Passover starts on Wednesday. The ritual meal on the evening when the holiday begins has many traditions, which include drinking four cups of wine at specified points in the communal reading of the Haggadah, the special book with the order of the service, or Seder.

Elijah the Prophet, from a 16th century Haggadah. The traditional belief is that Elijah will herald the coming of the Messiah.
To welcome Elijah a cup of wine is left on the Seder table -- "Elijah's cup" -- and near the end of the
ritual, someone opens the door, inviting him in, all hoping that his arrival is immanent.

Planning our Seder, I was thinking about common wisdom and common expressions that have to do with wine and other beverages. Like describing a sad drunk person as crying in his beer, or a loser as crying over spilled milk. So I searched, and found a number of quotes about water, wine, and even whiskey. Here are some of them:

• In wine there is truth: Latin original: In Vino Veritas. -- Pliny the Elder
• Wine is a mocker, strong drink is a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise. -- Proverbs 20:1.
• Priests are said in Scripture to devour the sins of the people; and they find sins so hard to digest that they must have the best wine to wash them down. ― Erasmus
• Never refuse to give your enemy water. -- African proverb
• The water pot does not go down to the water by itself. -- Ugandan proverb
• Only the rich complain when it rains. -- Zambian proverb
• A genuine gift is like water from the tap; when it flows out, it does not flow back. -- Zambian proverb.
• The usefulness of a well is known when it dries up. -- Ugandan proverb

African proverbs about water are especially poignant because of life-threatening droughts in many regions of the continent.
(Photo source.)

• When you are dying of thirst, it is too late to dig a well.” - Japanese proverb
• When one man drinks while another can only watch, doomsday soon follows. – Turkish proverb
• They say some of my stars drink whiskey, but I have found that the ones who drink milkshakes don't win many ballgames. — Casey Stengel
• Man does not live by bread alone, he also needs a beverage -- Woody Allen
• Work is the curse of the drinking classes -- Oscar Wilde
• I don’t drink water…fish pee in it -- W.C. Fields

W.C.Fields did not drink water.

• Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over. -- Mark Twain 
• Never refuse to do a kindness unless the act would work great injury to yourself, and never refuse to take a drink - under any circumstances. -- Mark Twain
• Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whiskey is barely enough. -- Mark Twain
• We hear of the conversion of water into wine at the marriage in Cana, as of a miracle. But this conversion is, through the goodness of God, made every day before our eyes. Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, and which incorporates itself with the grapes to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy! — This is the real Ben Franklin quote, often cited in a garbled form.
• Drink does not drown care, but waters it, and makes it grow faster — Ben Franklin

Sources

• https://mcc.org/centennial/100-stories/words-wisdom-african-proverbs-water
• https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/water-quotes-from-around-world-jim-lauria
• The Adages of Erasmus
• Quotes of Mark Twain (note that on the internet are many Twain quotes and quite a few are fake)

Drinking wine at a Passover Seder from the Sarajevo Haggadah, around 1350.