Therefore the Fathers counsel: act with discernment. Of two evils one chooses the lesser. If you are in private, take the poorest morsel, but if anyone is looking, you should take the middle way that arouses the least notice. Keep hidden and as inconspicuous as possible; in all circumstances let this be your rule.
—Tito Colliander, Way of the Ascetics
Author: SO GOOD QUOTES
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1. Weight: If you eat less … sure, you don’t get the gastronomical pleasures of someone who eats a huge amount of delicious food every day. But you learn to be happy with “enough,” so that you eat good, healthy food, and find pleasure outside of eating instead. And then you’re leaner and lighter, which allows you not only to be healthier, but you can do more activities with more energy, you can zip up a mountain or run a marathon or climb a rock wall with much more ease. Living with a leaner body is easier on the joints, less stressful, and gives you greater freedom.
mnmlist: minimalism: the lean life -
Nothing will ever please me, no matter how excellent or beneficial, if I must retain the knowledge of it to myself. And if wisdom were given me under the express condition that it must be kept hidden and not uttered, I should refuse it. No good thing is pleasant to possess, without friends to share it.
—Seneca, Letters from a Stoic -
When you go to visit any of your relations or friends, do not go to their house in order to eat and drink well, but go there in order to take part in friendly and sincere conversation with them, to refresh your soul from worldly vanities by friendly and loving intercourse, to be mutually comforted by your common faith. For “I seek not yours, but you,” says the Apostle.
—St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ -
Be firmly assured that the evil is kindled in your heart by the enemy; he chiefly assaults the heart through a full stomach. This is from experience.
—St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ -
“If a man should transgress moderation, the things which give the greatest delight would become the things which give the least.”
— Epictetus, Enchiridion -
“How can we guard our hearts when our mouths and stomachs are open?”
— Abba Titheous -
“Gluttony is hypocrisy of the stomach. When it’s filled, it complains about lack; when it’s stuffed to bursting it bemoans being hungry. Gluttony creates seasonings, and is the source of sweets. You cut it off in one place and it pops up in another. Stop that and a new one will open. Gluttony’s deceptive: it eats moderately but at the same time would happily devour everything.”
—Saint John of the Ladder -
There are three things I can’t do without: food, clothing and sleep.
But I can cut down on them.
—Abba Loannis Kolovos -
“Those who force food into their stomach expand their intestines, whereas those who fight against it cause them to shrink. When they’ve shrunk, there’s no need for a lot of food and, in this way, we fast naturally.”
—Saint John of the Ladder