For, say they, when cruising in an empty ship, if you can get nothing better out of the world, get a good dinner out of it, at least.
—Herman Melville, 1851Quotes
No lyric poems live long or please many people which are written by drinkers of water.
—Horace, 20 BCMost vegetarians I ever saw looked enough like their food to be classed as cannibals.
—Finley Peter Dunne, 1900Thought depends absolutely on the stomach, but in spite of that, those who have the best stomachs are not the best thinkers.
—Voltaire, 1770Cooking is the most massive rush. It’s like having the most amazing hard-on, with Viagra sprinkled on top of it, and it’s still there twelve hours later.
—Gordon Ramsey, 2003We should look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to eat and drink, for dining alone is leading the life of a lion or wolf.
—Epicurus, c. 300 BCIs it only the mouth and belly which are injured by hunger and thirst? Men’s minds are also injured by them.
—Mencius, 300 BCThank God for tea! What would the world do without tea? How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.
—Sydney Smith, 1855To safeguard one’s health at the cost of too strict a diet is a tiresome illness indeed.
—La Rochefoucauld, 1678The belly is the reason why man does not mistake himself for a god.
—Friedrich Nietzsche, 1886One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.
—Virginia Woolf, 1929At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.
—W. Somerset Maugham, 1896A great step toward independence is a good-humored stomach, one that is willing to endure rough treatment.
—Seneca the Younger, c. 60