List of points

Could it be true — no, no, I can't believe it — that in the world there are not men but bellies?

Over-eating is the forerunner of impurity.

The choicest morsel, if eaten by a pig, is turned (to put it bluntly), into pigflesh!

Let us be angels, so as to dignify the ideas we assimilate.

Let us at least be men, so as to convert our food into strong and noble muscles, or perhaps into a powerful brain capable of understanding and adoring God.

But let us not be beasts, like so many, so very many!

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!

You are not less happy with too little than with too much.