If Nebuzaradan the chief cook had not come, the temple of the Lord would not have been burnt [2 Kg 25.8], which means to say: if the relaxation of gluttony had not come into the soul, the mind would not have fallen in the battle with the enemy.

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

Joseph asked Abba Poemen the best way to fast. Poemen said, “everyone should eat a little less than he wants, every day.”

Joseph said to him, “But when you were a young man, you would sometimes fast two days in a row.”

“That’s true. Sometimes I would fast three days in a row, or an entire week. But the great hermits have tested all of these things. They discovered that it’s best to eat something every day, and then on certain days, a little less.”

By Way of the Desert: 365 Daily Readings

If we have demonstrated such greed at the table of the body, imagine how we would have behaved at the table of spiritual things, if we had felt ourselves attracted by it.

—Carlo Carretto, Letters from the Desert

We amuse ourselves with food and drink, gratifying ourselves by them, instead of only using them for the necessary nourishment of our body and the support of our bodily life. 

—St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ

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

“Sweet life is not experienced by those who enjoy it in a worldly way, but rather by those who live spiritually and accept bitterness with joy, like a healing herb for the soul’s health, and eat only for their bodily preservation.”

—Saint Paisos

“One should not think about the doings of God when one’s stomach is full; on a full stomach there can be no vision of the Divine mysteries.”

—St. Seraphim of Sarov

I have not even the knowledge, which satiety teaches to animals, of what should be the measure of my food or my drink.  I do not yet know how much I can hold.”

—Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

“Curb your appetite and you will more easily curb every inclination of the flesh.”

—Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ