Luigi Cornaro·1558Those who are slaves to their appetites cannot preserve their reason, their memory, or their senses in their full vigour; for a full belly does not produce a fine mind.
Maimonides·1170Excessive eating is like a deadly poison to the body and is a principal cause of all illness.
Luigi Cornaro·1558The food which a temperate man leaves upon his plate is more beneficial than that which a glutton eats.
An immoderate diet is unhealthy, but a temperate one preserves strength.
Can you really ask what reason Pythagoras had for abstaining from flesh? For my part I rather wonder both by what accident and in what state of soul or mind the first man touched his mouth to gore and brought his lips to the flesh of a dead creature, set forth tables of dead, stale bodies, and ventured to call food and nourishment the parts that had a little before bellowed and cried, moved and lived.
Abstinence is the nurse of the soul.
