Quotes on Fasting

Special Quotes on Fasting

Quotes on Fasting

He who buries his head deep into a nosebag full of food cannot hope to see the invisible world. ~Al-Ghazali

He who eats until he is sick must fast until he is well. ~English Proverb

When the stomach is full, it is easy to talk of fasting. ~St. Jerome
If thou wouldst preserve a sound body, use fasting and walking; if a healthful soul, fasting and praying; walking exercises the body, praying exercises the soul, fasting cleanses both. ~Francis Quarles

Fasting is the first principle of medicine; fast and see the strength of the spirit reveal itself. ~Rumi


Periodic fasting can help clear up the mind and strengthen the body and the spirit. ~Ezra Taft Benson

What is the benefit of fasting in our body while filling our souls with innumerable evils? ~Basil

When a young man, who has surfeited, in season and out of season, until exhausted nature gives way, and a fever is coming on, the good busy mother is in trouble. She anxiously inquires, “Now, John, what can you eat? You must eat something! People can’t live without food!” Then come toast, tea, etc. The stomach is exhausted, and no more needs stimulus or food, than a jaded horse needs the whip! What is needed is rest,—complete rest. Nine tenths of the acute diseases might be prevented, by a few days’ starvation, when the first indications appear. I don’t mean complete abstinence in every case, but perhaps a piece of coarse bread, with cold water for drink. If such a policy were generally adopted, what ruin would overtake the medical profession! ~Dio Lewis, M.D., Weak Lungs, And How To Make Them Strong, or Diseases of the Organs of the Chest, With Their Home Treatment By the Movement Cure, 1863

The light of the world will illuminate within you when you fast and purify yourself. ~Mahatma Gandhi

The observances of the church concerning feasts and fasts are tolerably well-kept, since the rich keep the feasts and the poor keep the fasts. ~Sydney Smith

There’s a hidden sweetness in the stomach’s emptiness.
We are lutes, no more, no less.
If the sound box is stuffed full of anything, no music.
If the brain and the belly are burning clean with fasting,
every moment a new song comes out of the fire.
The fog clears, and a new energy makes you run up the steps in front of you….
~Rumi

Fasting today makes the food good tomorrow. ~German Proverb

A fast is better than a bad meal. ~Irish Proverb

Eating three times a day means taking on, almost without respite, the work of assimilation. ~Adalbert de Vogüé, To Love Fasting: The Monastic Experience
The very act of eating can be exhausting; it takes a lot of energy to digest food. When the body is freed from that chore, it naturally feels lighter and much more vibrant. ~Allan Cott

I was a devil of a scapegrace in my time…. Father racked his head for days together to find a punishment that I should remember; but it was all no good… bread and water was a welcome change to me from the everyday monotony of potatoes and bread-and-butter. After a sound drubbing followed by half a day’s fasting, I felt more like laughing than like crying; and, in half a while, all was forgotten and my wickedness began afresh and worse than ever. ~Stijn Streuvels

Abstinence and fasting cure many a complaint. ~Danish Proverb

[W]hen the faculties are empty, then your whole being listens. ~Thomas Merton

Fasting from any nourishment, activity, involvement, or pursuit—for any season—sets the stage for God to appear…. Fasting is not a tool to pry wisdom out of God’s hands or to force needed insight about a decision. Fasting is not a tool for gaining discipline or developing piety (whatever that might be). Instead, fasting is the bulimic act of ridding ourselves of our fullness to attune our senses to the mysteries that swirl in and around us. Sometimes God shows up. And sometimes he feeds us. And every now and then he throws his wild glory before us like bursting constellations, and it’s all we can do to wait for him to leave, lest we be destroyed in his presence…. Ultimately… I would confess that his bread of bitterness is better than the sweetest fare I have ever tasted. I took and ate, and it was good. ~Dan B. Allender, To Be Told: Know Your Story, Shape Your Future

Fasting cures diseases, dries up bodily humors, puts demons to flight, gets rid of impure thoughts, makes the mind clearer and the heart purer, the body sanctified, and raises man to the throne of God. ~Athenaeus of Naucratis

To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals. ~Benjamin Franklin

Fasting of the body is food for the soul. ~John Chrysostom

People said that man had changed: the weakness of people’s health no longer allows us to fast. Was it true? ~Adalbert de Vogüé

Fill up the goblet, and reach to me some!
Drinking makes wise, but dry fasting makes glum….
~William Rounseville Alger

One of my confreres sketched an explanation that attracted me: since the process of digestion is under the control of the brain, its cessation gave repose to the brain, allowed it a vacation. ~Adalbert de Vogüé

Fasting blinds the body
in order to open the eyes of your soul.
~Rumi, translated by Nevit O. Ergin

Fasting is the greatest remedy, the physician within. ~Paracelsus

I feel like a wisp of cloud, full of light and energy. It’s a magical rest for my whole system. ~Author Unknown

Do not neglect fasting the mind,
and, for you, fasting the flesh,
until you are as fast as the Tameless White Tiger,
lean as Xuan Wu’s Snake General,
still and strong as the Black Tortoise,
and worthy of Lao Tzu’s wisdom.
~Michael P. Garofalo, “Master Chang’s Pepper Talk,” Meetings with Master Chang San-Feng: Poetic Reflections, 2011

Any healthy man can go without food for two days — but not without poetry. ~Charles Baudelaire

The best of all medicines are rest and fasting. ~Benjamin Franklin

If you want to ascend like the Prophet
to the sky of immortality,
know this very well:
Fasting is your Arabian stallion.
~Rumi, translated by Nevit O. Ergin

Fasting cleanses the soul, raises the mind, subjects one’s flesh to the spirit, renders the heart contrite and humble, scatters the clouds of concupiscence, quenches the fire of lust, and kindles the true light of chastity. Enter again into yourself. ~Augustine of Hippo

Make hunger thy sauce, as a medicine for health. ~Thomas Tusser

In a fast, the body tears down its defective parts and then builds anew when eating is resumed. ~Herbert M. Shelton

Fasting is an amazing thing.
It gives people heart and soul.
~Rumi, translated by Nevit O. Ergin

Fasting and natural diet, though essentially unknown as a therapy, should be the first treatment when someone discovers that he or she has a medical problem. ~Joel Fuhrman

I fast for greater physical and mental efficiency. ~Plato

What the eyes are for the outer world, fasts are for the inner. ~Mahatma Gandhi

See how you feel, and always give in gracefully if that particular day is not your day to fast. ~Mimi Spencer, The FastDiet: Lose Weight, Stay Healthy, and Live Longer with the Simple Secret of Intermittent Fasting (Michael Mosley)

Dieters live life in the fasting lane. ~Author Unknown

[D]uring a fast, the digestive system gets an increasing rest. About ten hours after a meal, the contractions stop and the feeling of hunger disappears; five or six hours later the glucose stops coming directly from the intestines and begins to produce itself from the reserve of glycogen contained in the liver. From then on, the body works on itself in a closed circuit, becoming itself the source of the energy it uses. ~Adalbert de Vogüé, To Love Fasting: The Monastic Experience

Fasting strengthens control over our appetites, thus contributing to self-mastery. ~George Romney
More caution and perhaps more restraint are necessary in breaking a fast than in keeping it. ~Mahatma Gandhi