This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
That some of the indigent among us die of scanty food is undoubtedly true; but vastly more in this community die from eating too much than from eating too little.
Harold Lewis, fully Harold "Hal" Warren Lewis
Fear and risk are different creatures. What some of us fear most - poison in our drinking water, radiation in our air, pesticides on our food - pose hardly any real risk, while some we fear least - driving, drinking and smoking - kill many hundreds of thousands each year.
Worldly riches are like nuts; many clothes are torn in getting them, many a tooth broke in cracking them, but never a belly filled with eating them.
Christopher Morley, fully Christopher Darlington Morley
No man is lonely while eating spaghetti - it requires so much attention.
Intemperate eating kills more people than tobacco and alcohol, because it is the most widespread fault… If people knew how to eat properly they would retain their youthful resiliency much longer.
Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
Knowledge creates doubt, and doubt makes you ravenous for more knowledge. You can’t get full eating this way. The wise person dines on something more subtle: he eats the understanding that the named was born from the unnamed, that all being flows from non-being, that the describable world emanates from an indescribable source. He finds this subtle truth inside his own self, and becomes completely content.
Doubt | Knowledge | Self | Truth | Understanding | Wise | World |
The historical Jesus has a different category of sins from that of the Old Testament or of Paul or of ecclesiastical writers after him. The sins which occupied the attention of Jesus were hypocrisy, wordliness, intolerance, and selfishness. The sins which occupy the principal attention of the Church… are impurity, murder, the drinking of alcohol, swearing, the neglect of the Church’s services and ordinances.
Attention | Church | Hypocrisy | Intolerance | Murder | Neglect | Selfishness | Old Testament | Old |
Maltbie Babcock, fully Maltbie Davenport Babcock
Death is a great preacher of deathlessness. The protest of the soul against death, its reversion, its revulsion, is a high instinct of life. Dissatisfaction in his world who satisfieth the desire of every living thing has a grip on the future. As far as this goes, he has the least assurance of immortality who can be best satisfied with eating and drinking and “things”’ he has the surest hope of ongoings and far distances who does not live by brad alone, whose eye is looking over the shoulder of things, whose ear hears mighty waters rolling ever more, who has “hopes naught can satisfy below.” The limits of which death makes us aware, make us aware of life’s limitlessness. The wing cage knows it was meant for an ampler ether and diviner air.
Death | Desire | Future | Hope | Immortality | Instinct | Life | Life | Protest | Soul | World |
Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
Personal health is preserved by learning about one’s own constitution, by finding out what is good or bad for oneself, by continual self-control in eating habits and comforts (but just to the extent needed for self-preservation), by forgoing sensual pleasures, and lastly, by the professional skill of those to whose science these matters belong.
Control | Good | Health | Learning | Science | Self | Self-control | Self-preservation | Skill |
Maimonides, given name Moses ben Maimon or Moshe ben Maimon, known as "Rambam" NULL
The dietary laws train us to master our appetites and not to consider... eating and drinking the end of man's existence.
Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
Watch your motives in everything. Both the greedy man and the yogi eat. But would you say that eating is a sin because it is often associated with greed? Sin lies in the thought, in the motive. The worldly man eats to satisfy his greed, and the yogi eats to keep his body well. There is a lot of difference.
We seem to believe that our daily lives have nothing to do with the situation of the world. But if we do not change our daily lives, we cannot change the world. Drinking a cup of tea, picking up a newspaper, using toilet paper, all these things have to do with peace. Because nonviolence can be called awareness, we must be aware of what we are, of who we are, and of what we are doing.
Thou mayest as well expect to grow stronger by always eating as wiser by always reading. To much overcharges nature, and turns more into disease than nourishment. It is thought, and digestion which makes books serviceable, and give health and vigor to the mind.
Books | Disease | Health | Mind | Nature | Reading | Thought |
Gluttons no longer gorge themselves; they are simply suffering from one of a variety of eating disorders.