Friday, December 15, 2017

Top 18 Cigar (& Tobacco) Quotes: Ranked

With every Tom, Dick, and Harry about to post their year-end top-cigar lists, and MINE being published in September, I decided to at once act thricely. I strike while the list-iron is hot, that's one. Two is that I further enchant ya as to #Leafstyle. Three: I get a day-off because lists are EZ. As always, share your thoughts in the comment section below, which is closed.

Ah, but why 18? Life. In Hebrew, the numerical equivalent to the word chai(life) is 18. Please do not pronounce this as you would that disgusting tea. 

18.
"A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke." Rudyard Kipling

17.
"Smoking is indispensable if one has nothing to kiss." Sigmund Freud

16.
"By the cigars they smoke, and the composers they love, ye shall know the texture of men’s souls." John Galsworthy

15.
"Ah, if only I had brought a cigar with me! This would have established my identity." Charles Dickens

14.
"Tobacco is the passion of honest men and he who lives without tobacco is not worthy of living." Moliere

13.
"If you can’t send money, send tobacco." George Washington (to the Continental Congress, 1776)

12.
"Given the choice between a woman and a cigar, I will always choose the cigar." Groucho Marx

11.
"If smoking cigars is not permitted in heaven, I won’t go." Mark Twain

10.
"My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them." Winston Churchill (to some Muslim guy who was giving him a hard time)

9.
"Happiness? A good cigar, a good meal, a good cigar and a good woman -- or a bad woman; it depends on how much happiness you can handle." George Burns

8.
"If your wife doesn’t like the aroma of your cigar, change your wife." Zino Davidoff

7.
"If I had taken my doctor's advice and quit smoking when he advised me to, I wouldn't have lived to go to his funeral." George Burns

6.
"Of the smokers we can learn tolerance. I still do not know one who has complained about non-smokers." Alessandro Pertini.

5.
"A cigar ought not to be smoked solely with the mouth, but with the hand, the eyes, and with the spirit." Zino Davidoff

4.
"Eating and sleeping are the only activities that should be allowed to interrupt a man's enjoyment of his cigar." Mark Twain

3.
"Tobacco is my favorite vegetable." Frank Zappa

2.
"A good Cuban cigar closes the doors to the vulgarities of the world." Franz Liszt

1.
"Tobacco is the plant that converts thoughts into dreams." Victor Hugo

A couple notes. As to #18 I only included it quite begrudgingly. I'm not a Kipling fan and its meter strikes me as off. Following it, #17 might at first seem negative, but Freud does here what others on the list, such as Davidoff, dance around. He doesn't choose a cigar over a woman. There is no woman. Skipping forward to #3, I love-love Frank Zappa. #1 is a personal meditation. Although this may be misleading to say, as I do not meditate. Or perhaps I never stop. Hard to say.

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"A Pooper-Scooper" Kaplowitz Radio: December 13, 2017