There are two sentences inscribed upon the Delphic oracle, hugely accommodated to the usages of man's life: "Know thyself," and "Nothing too much;" and upon these all other precepts depend.
The food which a temperate man leaves upon his plate is more beneficial than that which a glutton eats.
One should not eat unless one is hungry, nor drink unless one is thirsty.
The stomach is not to be loaded, for there is nothing so hostile to thought as a full belly.
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.