List of points

Over-eating is the forerunner of impurity.

One has to give the body a little less than its due. Otherwise it turns traitor.

Gluttony is an ugly vice. Don't you feel a bit amused and even disgusted, when you see a group of dignified gentlemen, seated solemnly around a table, stuffing fatty substances into their stomachs, with an air of ritual, as if that were an end in itself?

At meals don't speak about food: that's vulgar and unworthy of you. Speak about something noble — of the soul or of the mind — and you will have dignified this physical duty.

The day you leave the table without having done some small mortification you have eaten like a pagan.

You generally eat more than you need. And that fullness, which often causes you physical heaviness and discomfort, benumbs your mind and renders you unfit to taste supernatural treasures.

What a fine virtue, even for this earth, temperance is!