"I Would Like to Propose a Toast"

[CCF Beijing]

What are some of your favorite toasts?

Toasts can be used for weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, football matches, office parties, retirements, promotion ceremonies. Etc, etc. (*I like to teach them in class...without alcohol, of course).

 

Here are a few to start it off:

 

AMERICA: "To the United States of America...where immigration is the sincerest form of flattery".

 

FRIENDS: "To goodbyes...may they never be spoken. To friendships...may they never be broken"

 

EDUCATION: "To our professor- a person whose job is to solve the problems of life which he himself avoided by becoming a professor".

 

PRAISE: "To our old buddy who came through when we needed him most proving the old saying- when it gets dark enough, you will see the stars".

 

FAMILY: "To the sap in our family tree".

 

ADVERSITY: "With this goblet rich and deep, I cradle all my woes to sleep".

 

ACCOUNTANTS: "To the accountants, may they always make brilliant deductions".

 

BEAUTY: "Never lose an opportunity to see anything beautiful. Beauty is God's handwriting".

 

AMERICA AND ENGLAND: "Here's to America and England- two countries separated by the same language".

 

GOOD FORTUNE: ""May Dame Fortune smile on you but never her daughter Miss Fortune".

 

LOVE: "To every lovely lady bright, I wish a gallant faithful knight, To every faithful lover too, I wish a trusting lady true"

 

DENTISTS: "To the man who deals with the tooth, the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth".

 

MARRIAGE: "To marriage- the last decision a man is allowed to make."

 

ENEMIES: "May we treat our friends with kindness and our enemies with generosity."

 

DRINK: "Here's to swearing, lying, stealing and drinking. Wheen you swear, swear by for country. When you lie, lie for a friend. When you steal, steal away from bad company. And when you drink, drink with me."

 

HUMOR: "To the laughter we have all shared because ....laughter is the shortest distance between to people"

[CCF Beijing]

 I'd like to propose a Christmas toast...."A Christmas wish-  May you never forget what is worth remembering  or remember  what is best forgotten..."

[CCF Beijing]

[CCF Beijing]

Good luck to American Matt and Chinese Marta. CHEERS! May you have many happy years ahead of you. Hope I get to meet you in the near future. Jeff from Chicago

[CCF Beijing]

Generosity- "No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor was the reward for what he gave." Calvin Coolidge

 

Friendship- "May are injuries be written in sand and our friendships in marble".

 

Irish- "Here's to the land of the shamrock so green

        Here's to the lad and his darling Colleen"

 

Critics- "To the critic- someone who likes to write about something he doesn't like."

 

Gambling- To the race track- where windows clean people.

 

 

[CCF Beijing]

A toast to the Olympics! May your country bring back the gold not mold, place first never worst and test one's mettle to win a medal.

Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

There are a number of old things which we are well rid of-child labor, the Berlin Wall, scurvy, glass shampoo bottles, and too many others to mention-but there are still others that we are foolish to let slip away. Toasting is one of them.

A toast is a basic form of human expression that can be used for virtually any emotion from love to rage (although raging toasts tend to cross the line into the realm of curses). They can be sentimental, cynical, lyric, comic, defiant, long, short, or even just a single word.

The names and traditions associated with the custom are many and date back to the ancient world. They are also very much a part of our literary heritage and, with the exception of the last few decades, there has not been a writer of note from Milton to Mencken who has not left us at least one good toast. What's more, some of our favorite fictional characters have ut-tered classics-among them, Tiny Tim's "God bless us every one!" from A Christmas Carol and Rick's "Here's lookin' at you, kid!" to Isle from the 1942 Warner Brothers classic Casablanca.

Most important, however, is that they are so useful. They are a medium through which such deep feelings as love, hope, high spirits, and admiration can be quickly, conveniently, and sincerely expressed.

There was a time, not that long ago, when one could not go to a luncheon-let alone a banquet or wedding-without hearing a series of carefully proposed and executed toasts. Toasts were the test of one's ability to come up with an appropriate inspiration to sip to the honor of some person, sentiment, or institution. It really didn't matter if it was an original written for the occasion or a time-tested classic passed down from Elizabethan times. What was important was whether or not the toast worked to keep the proceedings moving at a jolly pace.

[Richard Roman]

a good toast is like a miniskirt. It should be short enough to be interesting, but long enough to cover the essentials.

How did all this start? It’s said that back in 500 B.C. the Greeks poisoned wine as a way to get rid of enemies, nagging wives, undesirable people, political figures, and anyone else they didn’t want around. So to insure that wine had not been poisoned, the host would pour wine from a common pitcher, toast to health, then drink before everyone proving that it wasn’t poisoned. The Romans loved this custom, adopted it and soon began dipping burnt bread (toast) in the wine to reduce the acidity. The custom spread through time. Eventually the dipping of the bread ceased because wine makers made better tasting wine.

I drink Martinis.
Two at the very most.
Three I'm under the table.
Four I'm under the host
---Dorothy Parker

I drink to your charm,
Your beauty and your brains,
Which gives you a rough idea
of how hard up I am for a drink.
---Groucho Marx

Everybody has to believe in something, I believe I'll have another drink.
---W.C. Fields

[Laura Zhang]

brilliant post!

[Angel Vergara]

I have read this line from  Connors' souvenir shirt it says: "Here's to our wives and girlfriends, May they Never Meet" 

Seriously, A big toast to Teachers out there who patiently teach and impart knowledge! cheers! 

[CCF Beijing]

Viva Espana! Juego el futbol brilliante! (is my Spanish right Ferney?)

[Richard Roman]

Canada - I drink to thee!