Daily Inspiration Quote by Booth Tarkington

A perfectly aimed little torpedo of small-town psychology: Tarkington is less interested in alcohol than in how quickly a community can turn a person into a story. The line lands because it sounds like folk wisdom, but it’s really an indictment. “Any man whatsoever” widens the target until it’s basically everyone, implying that reputation isn’t earned so much as assigned. And the kicker - “taken to drink” - isn’t a neutral observation; it’s the most convenient, culturally legible explanation for male deviation. When a man slips the expected track, the crowd reaches for a diagnosis that requires no evidence, only a raised eyebrow.

The specific intent is satiric compression. Tarkington, writing in an America obsessed with respectability and on the cusp of Prohibition-era moral policing, understands that drink functions as a catchall narrative: it explains debt, moodiness, ambition, cruelty, failure. It also absolves the gossiper of curiosity. If it’s drink, then you don’t have to ask what pain, pressure, or hypocrisy is actually in the room. “One of them” hints there’s another equally automatic belief (likely sexual scandal, dishonesty, or madness), but Tarkington only names the one that could be discussed openly in polite society. That’s the subtextual punch: communities often prefer sins that are speakable.

The wit is how calmly it’s delivered. No moral thunder, just the sly recognition that the quickest way to control a man is to circulate a plausible vice. Tarkington’s real subject is social power: rumor as a civic weapon, and “drink” as its most reusable bullet.