It gives me great pleasure. — George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw offered the above toast during a fashionable English dinner party at which it was the custom of the host to select both the giver and the subject of the toast. In an apparent attempt to tongue-tie the great literary lion, the host selected the subject of sex — an unmentionable in society at the turn of the century. Shaw responded simply and to the point.

Here's champagne to our real friends, And real pain to our sham friends. — Unknown

Here's hoping that you live forever And mine is the last voice you hear. — Willard Scott

May you live all the years of your life. — Jonathan Swift

May you live as long as you want And may you never want as long as you live. — Unknown

May our wine brighten the mind and strengthen the resolution. — Unknown

When wine enlivens the heart May friendship surround the table. — Unknown

Fill to him, to the brim! Round the table let it roll. The divine says that wine Cheers the body and the soul. — Unknown

May friendship, like wine, improve as time advances, And may we always have old wine, old friends, and young cares. — Unknown

Wine improves with age – I like it the older I get. — Unknown

To my friends: Friends we are today, And friends we'll always be — For I am wise to you, And you can see through me. — Unknown

May bad fortune follow you all your days And never catch up with you. — Unknown

To temperance . . . in moderation. — Lem Motlow

Give me wine to wash me clean From the weather-stains of care. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Let us have wine and women mirth and laughter, Sermons and soda-water the day after. — Lord Byron

Here's looking at you, kid. — Humphrey Bogart toasting Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca

To get the full value of joy, you must have someone to divide it with. — Mark Twain

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

Don't make love by the garden gate - Love is blind - but the neighbors ain't !

As best man at a wedding dinner I reminded the groom of the advice I had given him which he chose not to follow and which led him to be in the wedding – Brent H. Curtis

YOU MAY HAVE WONDERED just what a roasted slice of bread has to do with the practice of offering a toast? The two couldn't seem more unrelated.

As early as the 6th Century B.C., the Greeks were toasting to the health of their friend's for a highly practical reason — to assure them that the wine they were about to drink wasn't poisoned. To spike the wine with poison, had become an all too common means of dealing with social problems — disposing of an enemy, silencing the competition, preventing a messy divorce, and the like. It thus became a symbol of friendship for the host to pour wine from a common pitcher, drink it before his guests, and satisfied that it was a good experience, raise his glass to his friends to do likewise.

The Romans, impressed by the Greeks in general, tended to handle their interpersonal problems similarly. It's no surprise then, that the practice of toasting was popular at Roman get-togethers as well.

The term toast comes from the Roman practice of dropping a piece of burnt bread into the wine. This was done to temper some of the bad wines the Romans sometimes had to drink. (Much later, even Falstaff said, "put toast in't" when he was requesting a jug of wine in Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor.) The charcoal actually reduces the acidity of slightly off wines making them more palatable. In time, the Latin tostus meaning roasted or parched, came to refer to the drink itself. In the 1700's, party-goers even liked to toast to the health of people not present — usually celebrities and especially beautiful women. A women who became the object of many such toasts, came to be known as the "toast of the town."

By the 1800's, toasting was the proper thing to do. Charles Panati reported that a "British duke wrote in 1803 that 'every glass during dinner had to be dedicated to someone,' and that to refrain from toasting was considered 'sottish and rude, as if no one present was worth drinking to.' Oneway to effectively insult a dinner guest was to omit toasting him or her; it was, as the duke wrote, 'a piece of direct contempt'."

The following comments are some of the accepted patterns of behavior when giving or receiving a toast.

• Never drink a toast or stand, when it's being offered to you. However, you should always stand up and respond to the toast, even if this means just thanking the host for the gesture.

• Never should a toast be offered to the guest of honor until the host has had the opportunity to do so. If it appears that the host has no intention of offering a toast, it would be polite to quietly request the host's indulgence to do so yourself.

• You should always stand when offering a toast unless it is a small informal group. Standing can help you to get the attention of the group and quiet them down. It is best not to signal for quiet by rapping on a glass. You could easily end up with nothing to toast with.

• It is not a good idea to push someone to make a toast who would otherwise prefer not to. You might hear a toast that you would just as soon not hear.

• Never refuse to participate in a toast. It is more polite and perfectly acceptable, to participate with a non-alcoholic beverage or even an empty glass than not at all.

Toasts are very much a part of those special occasions in our lives — anniversaries, birthdays, reunions, holidays and weddings. What follows are a few reminders of the particulars that have become customary at some of these events.

• At a christening luncheon, toasts are offered to the child first by the Godparents, followed by the parents, the siblings and then any guests.

• Engagements are formally announced by the father of the bride with an appropriate toast.

• At a wedding reception, at which a meal is served, toasts are offered once all of the guests have been seated and have been served their drinks. At less formal affairs, toasts should be offered after everyone has gone through the receiving line and has been served a drink. With large weddings, it may be more practical to do most of the toasting at the rehersal dinner than at the wedding reception itself.

• Whether at the rehearsal dinner or the wedding reception, the toasts are generally offered to the bride and groom beginning with the best man. The groom should then respond with a toast of thanks. Other toasts then may be offered if desired, in following order — Fathers, beginning with the father of the bride; Mothers, beginning with the mother of the bride; Groom to the bride; Bride to the groom.