Hence, to be purified from all these is most difficult, and requires a great contest, and we must bestow much labour both by night and by day to be liberated from an attention to them, and this, because we are necessarily complicated with sense. Whence, also, as much as possible, we should withdraw ourselves from those places in which we may, though unwillingly, meet with this hostile crowd. From experience, also, we should avoid a contest with it, and even a victory over it, and the want of exercise from inexperience.

…

He also adds, that this philosopher does not even dream of betaking himself to banquets. Much less, therefore, would he be indignant, if deprived of broth, or pieces of flesh; nor, in short, will he admit things of this kind. And will he not rather consider the abstinence from all these as trifling, and a thing of no consequence, but the assumption of them to be a thing of great importance and noxious? For since there are two paradigms in the order of things, one of a divine nature, which is most happy, the other of that which is destitute of divinity, and which is most miserable ¹⁶; the Coryphaean philosopher will assimilate himself to the one, but will render himself dissimilar to the other, and will lead a life conformable to the paradigm to which he is assimilated, viz. a life satisfied with slender food, and sufficient to itself, and in the smallest degree replete with mortal natures.

…

So that only granting to nature what is necessary, and this of a light quality, and through more slender food, he will reject whatever exceeds this, as only contributing to pleasure.

…

For, let any man show us who endeavours as much as possible to live according to intellect, and not to be attracted by the passions of the body, that |37 animal food is more easily procured than the food from fruits and herbs; or that the preparation of the former is more simple than that of the latter, and, in short, that it does not require cooks, but, when compared with inanimate nutriment, is unattended by pleasure, is lighter in concoction, and is more rapidly digested, excites in a less degree the desires, and contributes less to the strength of the body than a vegetable diet.

—Porphyry, On abstinence from animal food (1823) Book 1. Pp.11-44

Let all persons of all conditions avoid all delicacy and niceness in their clothing or diet, because such softness engages them upon great misspendings of their time, while they dress and comb out all their opportunities of their morning devotion, and half the day’s severity, and sleep out the care and provision for their souls.

—Rev. Jeremy Taylor, CARE OF OUR TIME. -Rules for employing our time…, The Whole Works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor, Volume 3. THE RULE AND EXERCISES OF HOLY LIVING AND DYING….: The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living and Dying

For besides hunger and thirst, there are some labours of the body, and others of the mind, and there are sorrows and loads upon the spirit by its communications with the indispositions of the body ; and as the labouring man may be supplied with bigger quantities, so the student and contemplative man with more delicious and sprightful nutriment : for as the tender and more delicate easily-digested meats will not help to carry burdens upon the neck, and hold the plough in society and yokes of the laborious oxen ; so neither will the pulse and the leeks, Lavinian sausages, and the Cisalpine suckets or gobbets of condited bull’s-flesh, minister such delicate spirits to the thinking man ; but his notion will be flat as the noise of the Arcadian porter, and thick as the first juice of his country lard, unless he makes his body a fit servant to the soul, and both fitted for the employment.

—Rev. Jeremy Taylor, The House of Feasting .The Whole Works of the Rt. Rev. Jeremy Taylor, Volume 1

“I feed sweetly upon bread and water, those sweet and easy provisions of the body, and I defy the pleasures of costly provisions;” —Epicurus  and the man 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

But her innocence left her a very long time ago, and she never noticed. She eats only grass, but she has a meat eater’s heart.

—Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver

All this is contrary to nature, for the Creator has ordained the same natural way of life for both us and the animals. ‘Behold,’ says God to man, ‘I have given you every herb of the field, to serve as food for you and for the beasts’ (cf. Gen, 1:29-30). Thus we have been given a common diet with the animals; but if we use our powers of invention to turn this into something extravagant, shall we not rightly be judged more unintelligent than they? The animals remain within the boundaries of nature, not altering in any way what God has ordained; but we, who have been honored with the power of intelligence, have completely abandoned His original ordinance. Do animals demand a luxury diet? What chefs and pastry-cooks pander to their bellies? Do they not prefer the original simplicity, eating the herbs of the field, content with whatever is at hand, drinking water from springs – and this only infrequently?

Since, then, possessions are the cause of great harm and, like a source of disease, they give rise to all the passions, we must eliminate this cause if we are really concerned for the well-being of our souls. Let us cure the passion of avarice through voluntary poverty. By embracing solitude let us avoid meeting those who do us no good, for the company of frivolous people is harmful and undermines our state of peace. Just as those who live in an unhealthy climate are generally ill, so those who spend their time with worthless men share in their vices. 

—St. Neilos The Ascetic
Philokalia

And concerning this matter the learning of physicians also testifieth, and they, that is to say their learning, or art, which hath been discovered for the stablishing of the body, know better than all other arts, that the health and sickness of the body arise from the food, [p. 377] and if they be asked, they will always advise sparingness in the use of meat, and in |360 addition to this also they will advise that the food of a man should be meagre, and that he should guard against drinking wine freely. And if they allow a man to drink wine for need’s sake they break the strength thereof with much water, and then give it to him to drink. And they command a man very fully to beware of idleness, and to love fatigue, and to seek work, and with exercises of all kinds which are akin to work they preserve the health of the bodies of the children of men. And these they advise “That the ducts of the body may not be filled with the living liquid which ariseth from the over-eating of meat, and that they may not be blocked up and prevent the passage through them of the living power of the food, which is the strengthener of the body.” And this [passage] also is written in their works: “Meat is the cause of all the diseases of the body, and though by chance they may be produced from other causes, if thou increasest [the use of] meat it becometh a nurse unto them, and preventeth wholly the benefits of the art of the physician.”

—Philoxenus, Ascetic Discourses (1894) pp.337-402. Discourse 10 — On Gluttony

And because they were not refined in their bodies, but in their souls, they chose vegetable food that their bodies might become meagre, and the strength and the natural power of their members might be reduced, and that after these things the living parts of the soul might be revealed unto the perception and sight of divine knowledge. And this actually took place, for after they had eaten pulse and drunk water for three years this knowledge was revealed unto them, not that which is born of words, but that which is born of deeds, for they were doing the works which gave birth unto the knowledge of the spirit, while they were learning the words which gave birth unto human knowledge; but because their expectation was directed unto the revelation of that knowledge which ariseth from works and not unto that which ariseth from words, where they looked they saw, and where they expected they received, and they became a medium for words, and receptive vessels of the knowledge of the spirit. 

—Philoxenus, Ascetic Discourses (1894) pp.403-471. Discourse 11 — On Abstinence

Now Paul crieth unto us, “Let not your hearts be made heavy through the eating of flesh and the drinking of wine”, that he may teach us that meat maketh heavy the heart, but they ate and did not become heavy, and they ate, moreover, that they might show that their lightness was more powerful than the heaviness of meat, and that by that thing which maketh dense the heart their mind became the brighter, and that by that which maketh heavy the body, and darkeneth the mind, the lightness of their understanding became more luminous. For being abstinent, that they should be clean, and pure, and holy, was not accounted by them so great a thing as that they should be purified in the matter of the things which make gross the heart, that is to say, that they should be purified in the matter of the things which are the contrary of purity, that they might overcome like mighty men that which was opposed to them, and that, like men of power and freemen, they might be uninjured by the things which cause injury.

—Philoxenus, Ascetic Discourses (1894) pp.403-471. Discourse 11 — On Abstinence