Echoes

To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals.

An immoderate diet is unhealthy, but a temperate one preserves strength.

A person should not eat until his stomach is full. Rather, he should eat until he has consumed approximately three quarters of his fill.

Everything in excess is opposed to nature.

I eat only what is enough to sustain my life. My food is bread, soup, an egg, and a little meat. And the amount I eat is no more than my body can easily digest.

Those 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.

Excessive eating is like a deadly poison to the body and is a principal cause of all illness.

If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health.

Abstinence is the nurse of the soul.

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.

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.

As long as a person exercises, exerts himself greatly, does not eat to the point of being overly full, and keeps his bowels soft, illness will not come upon him and his strength will increase.

Frugality is founded on the principle that all riches have limits.

With parsimony a little is sufficient; without it nothing is sufficient; but frugality makes a poor man rich.

Sleep and watchfulness, both of them, when immoderate, constitute disease.

Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt.

The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided.

Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.

A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety.

He whose intellect overcomes his desire is higher than the angels; he whose desire overcomes his intellect is less than an animal.

Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.

It seems that perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away.

Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it.

Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power.