Fasting Quotes
Historical and modern day quotes on the value of fasting.
Below are some of the best fasting quotes from both modern medical and health professionals as well as
famous historical figures. History shows us that fasting was considered a natural therapy for so many
of the ails of the past.
Modern professionals are telling us the same is still true; that fasting will alleviate a host
of ailments that plague us in our modern world.
The fasting quotes are divided into four categories: Historical, Modern M.D.s, Other Health
Professionals, and Religious Writers and Figures.
Historical
"Fasting is the greatest remedy-- the physician within."
Philippus Paracelsus,
one of the three fathers of Western medicine
"Instead of
using medicine, better fast today."
Plutarch, a Greek biographer and
moralist
"The best of all medicines is resting
and fasting."
Benjamin Franklin
"Everyone
has a doctor in him; we just have to help him in his work. The natural healing force within each one
of us is the greatest force in getting well. ...to eat when you are sick, is to feed your
sickness."
Hippocrates, one of the three fathers of Western
medicine
"A little starvation can really do more
for the average sick man than can the best medicines and the best doctors."
Mark
Twain, in My Debut As a Literary Person
"Nature heals,
the doctor helps!"
Paracelsus, writing about activating
the "doctor
inside", or our own healing nature
"Every fool can fast,
but only the wise man knows how to break
a fast."
G.B. Shaw,
writer
"Humans live on one-quarter of what they eat; on
the other three-quarters lives their doctor."
Egyptian pyramid inscription,
3800 B.C.
Modern M.D.s
"I believe that fasting is the "missing link" in the Western diet."
"From a medical point of view, I
believe that fasing is not utilized often enough."
".... fasting is one of the best overall healing
methods because it can be applied to so many conditions and people."
"Fasting is the single greatest
natural healing therapy. It is nature's ancient, universal 'remedy' for many problems. Animals instictively
fast when ill."
all from Elson Haas, M.D. in Staying Healthy with
Nutrition
"Due to [the] effects of fasting, a fast can help
you heal with greater speed; cleanse your liver, kidneys, and colon; purify your blood; help you
lose
excess weight and water; flush out toxins; clear the eyes and tongue; and cleanse the
breath."
James F. Balch, M.D., in Prescription for Nutritional
Healing
"Therapeutic
[water] fasting accelerates the healing process and allows the body to recover from serious disease
in a dramatically short period of time."
"Fasting, combined with nutritional competence, removes
the most significant causes of disease."
"Therapeutic fasting is not a mystical or magical
cure. It works because the body has within it the capacity to heal when the obstacles to healing
are removed. Health is the normal state. Most chronic disease is the inevitable consequence of
living a life-style that places disease-causing stressors on the human organism. Fasting gives
the body an interlude without those stressors so that it can speedily repair or accomplish healing
that could not otherwise occur in the feeding state."
"The job of fasting is to supply the
body with the ideal environment to accomplish its work of healing."
"The body's wondrous
ability to autolyze (or self-digest) and destroy needless tissue such as fat, tumors, blood vessel
plaque, and other nonessential and diseased tissues, while conserving essential tissues, gives
the fast the ability to restore physiologic youth to the system. By removing or lessening the
burden of diseased tissue, including the fatty tissue narrowing the blood vessels, fasting
increases the blood flow and subsequent oxygenation and nutrient delivery to vital organs
throughout the body."
all from Joel Fuhrman, M.D., in Fasting and
Eating for Health
"Man is the only 'animal'
who persists in eating when he is sick, even though he may have no appetite and food makes
him nauseous."
"Fasting is a calming experience. It is restful. It relieves anxiety
and tension. It is rarely depressing and it is often downright exhilarating."
Alan
Cott, M.D., from Fasting: The Ultimate Diet
"Fasting is the strongest
appeal to the human being's natural powers of healing and self-rejuvenation, on both a spiritual and corporeal
level."
Heinz Fahrner, M.D.
"I often observe
in the fasting participants that by four days of fasting, concentration seems to improve, creative thinking
expands, depression lifts, insomnia stops, anxieties fade, the mind becomes more tranquil and a natural joy
begins to appear. It is my hypothesis that when the physical toxins are cleared from the brain cells, mind-brain
function automatically and significantly improves and spiritual capacities expands."
Gabriel
Cousins, M.D. (psychiatry)
"Although beginning my practice in
fog-covered medical superstition, I came to the conclusion that only nature can practice medicine."
"I
contend that during illness feeding becomes a burden to the sick. It uses energy that otherwise would be used
to fight the illness."
both from Dr. Edward Dewey
"I
must say in all seriousness that fasting when combined with a properly selected diet is the nearest approach to a
'cure-all' that is possible to conceive-- profoundly simple and simply profound!"
John Tilden,
M.D.
"Religious ascetics, who led their lives abstaining from food,
came to the conclusion that fasting improved not only their spiritual state, but also their physical condition,
and through fasting many diseases could be cured."
Dr. Inamura
Motoo
"I assert that fasting is the most efficient means for
correcting any disease."
Adolph Mayer, M.D., from his book Fast Cures
- Wondercures
"Fasting creates a condition of low concentration
of toxic wastes in the circulatory system. This is sensed by the plasma membrane of each cell and each cell
will then let go of its load of toxic wastes."
Ron Kennedy, M.D.
Other Health Professionals
 "Fasting
is like being a gifted sculptor who knows how to take areas of fatness and thinness and give them proper form."
Otto Buchinger,
Jr.,
director of a fasting clinic
"The practice of fasting tacitly acknowledges the fact that
ours is a self-healing organism. Healing occurs naturally if it is allowed; improper or excessive food simply thwarts the natural
ongoing healing processes. Forcing a sick person to eat 'to keep up his strength' overlooks the fact that digestion uses up strength too:
more often than not, the available strength is better used for healing the problem at hand than for digestion."
Annemarie
Colbin, from Food and Healing
"I do not think it is possible to over-emphasize the fact that the
physical sensations of fasting are, for the most part, far more pleasurable than the real or illusory delights of
feasting."
Herbert Shelton, in Fasting Can Save Your Life
"We must restore
fasting to the place it occupied in an ancient hierarchy of values 'above medicine'. We must rediscover it and restore it to honor because
it is a necessity."
Buchinger Clinics
"The skin becomes more youthful
[during fasting]. The eyes clear up and become brighter. One looks younger. The visible rejuvenation in the skin is matched by manifest
evidences of similar but invisible rejuvenescence throughout the body."
Herbert Shelton,
water fasting overseer
"When
we fast, energy is freed for a thorough housecleaning of the system. The body becomes lighter, more flexible; the mind becomes clearer
and more creative. Greater intuitive powers may develop and deep spiritual insights may be experienced after a period of time. A
feeling of well-being arises when the energy is freed in this way -- problems suddenly become solutions and ideas flow from
nowhere."
Kripalu Center for Holistic Health, from their book The Self-Health Guide
Religious Writers and Figures
"Fasting is a natural method of healing. When animals or savages are sick, they fast."
Paramahansa
Yogananda
"The purpose of fasting is to loosen to some degree the ties which bind us to the world of
material things and our surroundings as a whole, in order that we may concentrate all our spiritual powers upon the unseen and eternal
things."
Ole Kristian O. Hallesby, in Brief Biography
(courtesy of
http://dailychristianquote.com/dcqfasting.html)
"Fast because it is good for you...[it can be an] exercise to get the body in shape to be alive to itself. This process frees the self to be
more sensitive to the Creation, to ourselves, and to our histories."
Christian Century
magazine
"Prayer brings us halfway to God, fasting takes us to the gateway of
heaven."
Muhammad
"Fasting is the soul's nourishment, it reins in language
and seals one's lips, it tames desire and calms the choleric temperament. It awakens consciousness, renders the body docile, dispels
nightly dreams, cures headaches and strengthens the eyes."
John Chrysostom, one of the early founders of the
Christian Church
"Seek the angel of fresh air, the angel of water, the angel of sunlight,
and the angel of the earth, and invite them to stay with you throughout the fast!"
from the writings of the
Essenes
"When you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrits." "Be honest, be sincere.
Fast for honest and truthful purposes."
Book of Matthew
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