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, 1776Quotes
At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.
—W. Somerset Maugham, 1896Thought depends absolutely on the stomach, but in spite of that, those who have the best stomachs are not the best thinkers.
—Voltaire, 1770One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.
—Virginia Woolf, 1929Why is not a rat as good as a rabbit? Why should men eat shrimps and neglect cockroaches?
—Henry Ward Beecher, 1862The belly is the reason why man does not mistake himself for a god.
—Friedrich Nietzsche, 1886To safeguard one’s health at the cost of too strict a diet is a tiresome illness indeed.
—La Rochefoucauld, 1678We 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 BCWhat is food to one is to others bitter poison.
—Lucretius, 50 BCBad 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, 1860A great step toward independence is a good-humored stomach, one that is willing to endure rough treatment.
—Seneca the Younger, c. 60The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
—Miguel de Cervantes, 1615