But go to the crib, thou glutton, and there it will be found that when the charger is clean, yet nature’s rules were not prevaricated; the beast eats up all his provisions because they are natural and simple ; or if he leaves any, it is because he desires no more than till his needs be served ; and neither can a man (unless he be diseased in body or in spirit, in affection or in habit) eat more of natural and simple food than to the satisfaction of his natural necessities. He that drinks a draught or two of water and cools his thirst, drinks no more till his thirst returns; but he that drinks wine, drinks again longer than it is needful, even so long as it is pleasant. Nature best provides for herself when she spreads her own table ; but when men have gotten superinduced habits, and new necessities, art that brought them in must maintain them, but “wantonness and folly wait at the table, and sickness and death take away.”
—Rev. Jeremy Taylor, The House of Feasting The Whole Works of the Rt. Rev. Jeremy Taylor, Volume 1
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” This hunger must be natural,” not artificial and provoked ; for many men make necessities to themselves, and then think they are bound to provide for them.
—Rev. Jeremy Taylor, The House of Feasting The Whole Works of the Rt. Rev. Jeremy Taylor, Volume 1 -
by faring deliciously every day, men become senseless of the evils of mankind, inapprehensive of the troubles of their brethren, unconcerned in the changes of the world, and the cries of the poor, the hunger of the fatherless, and the thirst of widows
—Rev. Jeremy Taylor, The House of Feasting The Whole Works of the Rt. Rev. Jeremy Taylor, Volume 1 -
It cannot be constantly pleasant : for necessity and want makes the appetite, and the appetite makes the pleasure; and men are infinitely mistaken when they despise the poor man’s table, and wonder how he can endure that life, that is maintained without the exercise of pleasure, and that he can suffer his day’s labour, and recompense it with unsavoury herbs, and potent garlic, with water-cresses, and bread coloured like the ashes that gave it hardness : he hath a hunger that gives it deliciousness.
—Rev. Jeremy Taylor, The House of Feasting .The Whole Works of the Rt. Rev. Jeremy Taylor, Volume 1 -
He that feasts every day, feasts no day. And however you treat yourselves, sometimes you will need to be refreshed beyond it; but what will you have for a festival, if you wear crowns every day even a perpetual fulness will make you glad to beg pleasure from emptiness, and variety from poverty or a humble table.
—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 -
If you settle down and ask yourself, ‘I’m not really hungry, but there are so many nice things one can eat, what would I fancy?’ In five minutes’ time you will have projected tentacles over a variety of things…Once you have allowed your imagination full sway, things are much more difficult. In that respect we must be sober and we must fight for freedom. There is a great deal of difference between attachment and love, between hunger and greed, between a live interest and curiosity, and so forth. Every one of our natural propensities has got a counterpart which is marked by evil and which is one of the ways in which we get enslaved. This is what I meant by withdrawing tentacles. To begin with, say ‘no’. If you haven’t said ‘no’ in time, you are in for a fight. But then be ruthless about it, because reason and detachment are more precious than what you get as a slave in terms of enjoyment.
—Met. Anthony Bloom, Beginning To Pray -
Your firmness, your self-control in that which concerns eating and sleeping-if someone wished to describe these things, how would he find words to do so? Moreover, you have not permitted anyone, so to speak, to refer to your self-control and firmness using these terms, for your virtues are so much greater that we must search for other names for them. Because in referring to someone’s self-control and firmness, we speak of one who, being tormented by a passion, controls it. But you, you have nothing to control, for from the beginning you have possessed great ardor against the flesh…
—Saint John Chrysostom, Letters to Saint Olympia
