It is also necessary to accustom the body to become alienated, as much as possible, from the pleasure of the satiety arising from luxurious food, but not from the fullness produced by a slender diet, in order that moderation may proceed through all things, and that what is necessary, or what is most excellent, may fix a boundary to our diet. For he who thus mortifies his body will receive every possible good, through being sufficient to himself, and an assimilation to divinity.
—St. Porphyry, On Abstinence From Animal Food, Book 1
Category: FOOD
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but once he’d sated his hunger, he thought no greater pleasure would come from actively seeking more elaborate dining.
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“I feed sweetly upon bread and water, those sweet and easy provisions of the body, and I defy the pleasures of costly provisions;” and the man [Epicurus] was so confident that he had the advantage over wealthy tables, that he thought himself happy as the immortal gods, for these provisions are easy, they are to be gotten without amazing cares ; no man needs to flatter if he can live as nature did intend.
—Rev. Jeremy Taylor, The House of Feasting .The Whole Works of the Rt. Rev. Jeremy Taylor, Volume 1 -
Bread and water produce the highest pleasure, when one who needs them puts them to his lips. To grow accustomed therefore to simple and not luxurious diet gives us health to the full, and makes a man alert for the needful employments of life, and when after long intervals we approach luxuries, disposes us better towards them, and fits us to be fearless of fortune.
—Epicurus, LETTER TO MENOECEUS
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For the body that fasts cannot endure to sleep upon its pallet all the night through. Fasting naturally incites wakefulness unto God, not only during the day, but also at night. For the empty body of a faster is not greatly wearied by the battle against sleep. And even if his senses are weakened, his mind is wakeful unto God in prayer. It is better for a man to desist from his liturgy because of weakness due to fasting, than because of sloth due to eating.
—St. Isaac the Syrian -
For fasting was the commandment that was given to our nature in the beginning to protect it with respect to the tasting of food, and in this point the progenitor of our substance fell.
—St. Isaac the Syrian -
They who feed their bodies beyond due measure leave their souls hungry… They despise fasting, which is an important means for salvation. Instead they sink into gluttony and are conquered by sin, particularly by adulterous lust.
—St Cyril of Alexandria -
When the Bible itself becomes irksome, inquire whether you have not been spoiling your appetite by sweetmeats and renounce them; and believe that the Word is the wire along which the voice of God will certainly come to you, if the heart is hushed, and the attention fixed. “I will hear what God the Lord shall speak.”
—F.B. Meyer, The Gift of Suffering -
Do not hanker after varied and costly foods or lethal pleasures. For ‘she that indulges in pleasure”, it is said, ‘is dead while still alive” (1 Tim. 5: 6). Even with ordinary foods, avoid satiety as far as possible. For it is written; ‘Do not be deceived by the filling of the belly’ (Prov. 24: 15. LXX).
—St. Theodoros the Ascetic -
In the same way, be firm in your fasting. If you are tolerant in the time of abstaining, you will also be tolerant in the type and amount of food, and then you will be lax in controlling yourself. This lack of control will accompany you in every detail of your spiritual life.
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, The Life of Repentance and Purity
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