SO GOOD QUOTES

A brother asked Abba Sarmatas: “My logismoi [i.e. assaultive or tempting thoughts] are saying to me: ‘Do not work: eat, drink, and sleep.’” The elder said to him: “Eat when you are hungry, drink when you are thirsty, and sleep when you are weary.” In due course another elder came to the brother and the brother told him what Abba Sarmatas had said, then the elder said to him: “This is what Abba Sarmatas told you: ‘When you are hungry to the limit and so thirsty you can bear it no longer, then eat and drink, and when you are weary from protracted vigils, then sleep.’ That is what the elder was telling you.”

Give Me a Word: The Alphabetical Sayings of the Desert Fathers