The Jewish Wisdom Database

When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.

As a child my family's menu consisted of two choices: take it or leave it.

More people die from overeating than from undernourishment.

As a seal of carnelian on a necklace of gold is a concert of music at a banquet of wine.

When does a Jew sing? When he's hungry.

What nation on earth has customs as strange as ours? Our poor demand alms, as if they were collecting a debt, and our benefactors...invite paupers to their table.

Let all who are hungry come and eat. [Passover]

Nowhere does the Torah say, 'Invite your guest to pray'; but it does tell us to offer him food, drink and a bed.

To eat and drink on a festival in the company of your family without providing for the poor and distressed, is not 'the joy of the commandment' but the joy of your stomach. It is a disgrace.

A new friend is as new wine.

A man should eat and drink less than he can afford to, dress as well and as much as he can afford to, and lavish more on his wife.

The dish of two partners is neither hot nor cold. [Too many cooks spoil the broth. A shared kettle never boils.]

Bread eaten in secret is tasty.

If your enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he be thirsty, water to drink!

To a hungry man everything bitter is sweet.

Man does not live by bread alone.

In the sweat of your brow you shall eat your bread.

Because of gluttony, Esau sold his birthright.

None of your honey, none of your sting!

Where there is wine there is lust.

Eat a third and drink a third and leave the remaining third of your stomach empty. Then, when you get angry, there will be sufficient room for your rage.

It is nobler to visit a house of mourning than a house of feasting.

It is better to eat herbs and fear no creditors, than eat meat and have to hide from them.

Three things are good in a little measure and bad in large: yeast, salt, and hesitation.

Only the one who eats the dish knows how it tastes.