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In vino veritas
In vino veritas, in Greek Ἐν οἴνῳ ἀλήθεια, is a Latin proverb, which literally means:
"the truth is in wine."
This means that when a person is tipsy, their inhibitions are relaxed and they can easily reveal truthful facts and thoughts that they would never say when sober.
As Horace writes, “What does drunkenness not reveal? It shows hidden things”, and elsewhere he writes that kings "torture with wine those whom they do not know whether they are worthy of friendship."
University, in Deipnosophisti, quotes Filocoro who says that he who abandons himself to wine, not only discovers himself, but also gives others the opportunity to make themselves known for the freedom that wine inspires: hence the proverb wine is truth. Teognis also said that wine discovers the thought of man.
The proverb, in its Greek variant, is also cited by Diogenianus and Zenobius.
In the Latin variant it is cited by Pliny the Elder.
On the other hand, the proverb is contradicted by the fact that excess of wine can lead to false opinions. In this regard, Erasmus of Rotterdam, in inserting this ancient saying in his Lay down, comment that “Truth is not always opposed to lies, but sometimes it is opposed to simulation”, and therefore it happens that false things are said in good faith, and also that truths are said even when speaking insincerely.
Therefore, it would be necessary to distinguish unbridled drunkenness, which generally falsifies the correct vision of reality, from moderate intoxication which “eliminates simulation and hypocrisy”.
A philosophy of life and at the same time a humorous paralogism that the humanist Sabba da Castiglione attributed to an unidentified “great German philosopher” from Basel, “qui erat maximus doctor potavinus”, would read:
“Qui bene bibit et bene comedit, bene dormit, qui bene dormit, non peccat, qui non peccat vadit in paradisum. Ergo si volumes ire in paradisum, bibamus et comedamus egregie”.