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Quotes

The belly is the reason why man does not mistake himself for a god.

—Friedrich Nietzsche, 1886

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.

—Virginia Woolf, 1929

Feasts must be solemn and rare, or else they cease to be feasts. 

—Aldous Huxley, 1929

Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.

—Socrates, c. 430 BC

‘Tis a superstition to insist on a special diet. All is made at last of the same chemical atoms.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1860

The decline of the aperitif may well be one of the most depressing phenomena of our time.

—Luis Buñuel, 1983

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, 1851

What is food to one is to others bitter poison.

—Lucretius, 50 BC

I cannot but bless the memory of Julius Caesar, for the great esteem he expressed for fat men and his aversion to lean ones.

—David Hume, 1751

’Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers.

—William Shakespeare, c. 1595

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard for their own interest.

—Adam Smith, 1776

He makes his cook his merit, and the world visits his dinners and not him.

—Molière, 1666

When the stomach is full, it is easy to talk of fasting.

—St. Jerome, 395