Gluttony





Gluttony, derived from the Latin gluttire meaning "to gulp down or swallow", describes over-consumption and over-indulgence of food, drink, or wealth to the point of extravagance or waste. In some Christian denominations, it is considered one of the seven deadly sins—a misplaced desire for food that may result in hunger among the needy.

Quotes

 * GLUTTON, n. A person who escapes the evils of moderation by committing dyspepsia.
 * Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Dictionary (1906); republished as The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

Eating as much as an elephant eats? What are you at getting terribly fat? What do you think will come of that? I don't like the look of it.
 * Oompa Loompas: What do you get when you guzzle down sweets?
 * Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley, Oompa Loompa (Augustus), Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

To gorge and guzzle, feed and feast On everything he wanted to? Great Scott! It simply wouldn't do!
 * Oompa Loompas: How long could we allow this beast
 * Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, pg. 78 (1964)


 * Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.
 * Ezekiel 16:49 NIV


 * A filled stomach expels refined thoughts.
 * Saint Gregory the Theologian, in 'Handbook of Spiritual Counsel'', as translated by Peter A. Chamberas (Paulist Press: 1989), p. 110


 * For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.
 * Paul of Tarsus, Epistle to the Philippians 3:18-19 NIV


 * Moses … denied to the members of the sacred commonwealth unrestricted liberty to use and partake of the other kinds of food. All the animals of land, sea or air whose flesh is the finest and fattest, thus titillating and exciting the malignant foe pleasure, he sternly forbade them to eat, knowing that they set a trap for the most slavish of the senses, the taste, and produce gluttony, an evil very dangerous both to soul and body.
 * Philo, On The Special Laws, Part IV, p. 69


 * The inexperienced in wisdom and virtue, ever occupied with feasting and such, are carried downward, and there, as is fitting, they wander their whole life long, neither ever looking upward to the truth above them nor rising toward it, nor tasting pure and lasting pleasures. Like cattle, always looking downward with their heads bent toward the ground and the banquet tables, they feed, fatten, and fornicate. In order to increase their possessions they kick and butt with horns and hoofs of steel and kill each other, insatiable as they are.
 * Plato, Republic, 586a


 * The surrender to sin which began with mutual indulgence leads by an imperceptible degradation to solitary self-indulgence.
 * Dorothy L. Sayers, Hell, notes on Canto VI, (1949).


 * Tina, you fat lard, come get some dinner!
 * Napoleon, Napoleon Dynamite (2004)


 * In some cases, the psychological need for more or the feeling of not enough that is so characteristic of the ego becomes transferred to the physical level and so turns into insatiable hunger. The sufferers of bulimia will often make themselves vomit so they can continue eating. Their mind is hungry, not their body. This eating disorder would become healed if the sufferers, instead of being identified with their mind, could get in touch with their body and so feel the true needs of the body rather than the pseudo needs of the egoic mind. p. 31 If you have a compulsive behavior pattern... this is what you can do: When you notice the compulsive need arising in you, stop and take three conscious breaths. This generates awareness. Then for a few minutes be aware of the compulsive urge itself as an energy field inside you. Consciously feel that need to ... or the desire to act out some form of compulsive behavior. Then take a few more conscious breaths... As awareness grows, addictive patterns will weaken and eventually dissolve. Remember, however, to catch any thoughts that justify the addictive behavior, sometimes with clever arguments, as they arise in you mind. Ask yourself, Who is talking here? And you will realize the addiction is talking. As long as you know that, as long as you are present as the observer of your mind, it is less likely to trick you into doing what it wants.  p. 149
 * Eckhart Tolle, in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (2005)


 * Gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins. Dante puts his gluttons in the third circle of the Inferno – writhing 24/7 in a whirlpool mudbath of live intestines and excrement. Does that seem an overharsh judgment on a life spent ordering supersize cokes, buckets of fries and vats of gelato? Given the way we live now, the gluttony debate in Christian thought looks like a proto-Marxist prophecy against the overconsumption we have learned to call capitalism. Overconsumption that wrecks the planet and unbalances our relationships, nation to nation, class to class – and with one another. The greed-is-good philosophy of the Reagan/Thatcher era – 30 years of stuffing your face followed by economic collapse – is the macro model of what happens in our bodies. We are not designed for “all you can eat”... Food is fabulous. But too much eating of too much easy food too much of the time is partly responsible for our current level of degenerative disease – diabetes, heart conditions, fatty liver, hypertension, inflammation and, of course, the rise and rise of obesity. Yes, this is about the sort of food we eat, but it is also about the quantity of food we eat. Many of us are gluttons.
 * Jeanette Winterson in Why I fasted for 11 days, The Guardian, (11 July 2015)


 * O for a Bowle of fatt Canary, Rich Palermo, sparkling Sherry, Some Nectar else, from Juno’s Daiery, O these draughts would make us merry. O for a wench (I deale in faces, And in other dayntier things); Tickled am I with her Embraces, Fine dancing in such Fairy Ringes.O for a plump fat leg of Mutton, Veale, Lambe, Capon, Pigge, and Conney, None is happy but a Glutton, None an Asse but who wants money.Wines (indeed) and Girles are good, But brave victuals feast the bloud, For wenches, wine, and Lusty cheere, Jove would leape down to surfet heere.
 * John Lyly, song from Alexander and Campaspe (1584), I, ii


 * Allas! the shorte throte, the tendre mouth, Maketh that, Est and West, and North and South, In erthe, in eir, in water men to-swinke To gete a glotoun deyntee mete and drinke! Of this matere, o Paul, wel canstow trete, ‘Mete un-to wombe, and wombe eek un-to mete, Shal god destroyen bothe,’ as Paulus seith.
 * Geoffrey Chaucer, "The Pardoner's Tale", translating 1 Corinthians 6:13