Quotes & Sayings About Fasting

Fasting is the only method of suicide permitted by the Catholic Church. All other ways imply despair, a distrust of God's wisdom, an unwillingness to bear the hardships with which God tests his children. An absolute sin, suicide's punishment is eternal damnation in the fires of Hell. But fasting is undertaken for the purpose of penance, meditation, and spiritual ecstasy. It purifies the spirit by denying the body. It brings a soul closer to God. — David Morrell

Even though the Olympics take place during Ramadan, some Muslim athletes said they will not fast during games. Then, after sampling the British food, they said, on second thought, fasting sounds good. — Conan O'Brien

Intermittent fasting definitely and massively increases autophagy. And thanks to our caveman history, it thrived. In times of little food, lysosomes would race around the body looking for damaged cells, pre-diseased cells, and cells which weren't doing much. It would chop them apart - into their smallest parts - and either burn them for energy, or use them to repair other areas. Simply, it would perform miracles without any outside help. — Robert Skinner

No, this is the kind of fasting I want: Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you. Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people. 7 Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help. — Anonymous

It will require more than a few hours of fasting and prayer to cast out such demons as selfishness, worldliness, and unbelief. Repentance, to be of any avail, must work a change of heart and of conduct. — Theodore L. Cuyler

Surfeits kill more than fasting does ... — Dorothy Osborne

Therefore bread was created for the glory of Christ. Hunger and thirst were created for the glory of Christ. And fasting was created for the glory of Christ.
Which means that bread magnifies Christ in two ways: by being eaten with gratitude for his goodness, and by being forfeited out of hunger for God himself. When we eat, we taste the emblem of our heavenly food - the Bread of Life. And when we fast we say, "I love the Reality above the emblem." In the heart of the saint both eating and fasting are worship. Both magnify Christ. — John Piper

Satisfaction consists in the cutting off of the causes of the sin. Thus, fasting is the proper antidote to lust; prayer to pride, to envy, anger and sloth; alms to covetousness. — Richard Of Chichester

Fasting cures diseases, dries up bodily humors, puts demons to flight, gets rid of impure thoughts, makes the mind clearer and the heart purer, the body sanctified, and raises man to the throne of God. — Athenaeus

He that lives upon hope will die fasting. — Benjamin Franklin

Fasting reminds us that we are sustained by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Matt. 4:4). Food does not sustain us; God sustains us. — Richard J. Foster

Fasting gives me singularly happy afternoons. — Adalbert De Vogue

Many times the rewards of fasting come after the fast, though from time to time answers can come during the fast. — Jentezen Franklin

If you're having a difficult time making the best decision then consider fasting. Fasting is simply taking something you regularly do and replacing it with praying and seeking God. For example instead of eating a meal you can take that time to seek God and allow Him to speak to you about the decision. — Dan Black

Prayer is reaching out after the unseen; fasting is letting go of all that is seen and temporal. Fasting helps express, deepen, confirm the resolution that we are ready to sacrifice anything, even ourselves to attain what we seek for the kingdom of God. — Andy Murray

Fasting keeps you sensitive to His (God) Spirit, enabling you to live holy. — Jentezen Franklin

Fasting stirs a hunger in your spirit that goes deeper than the temporary you experience in your flesh. — Jentezen Franklin

For me, fasting has just been a huge part of everything God has done in my life, Fasting means I am putting everything on hold, and I am spending the time with God. It brings everything in focus, and I become eternity-minded. — Jentezen Franklin

Fasting lowers your blood pressure and can lower your cholesterol. — Jentezen Franklin

Sinking, sinking, drinking water. When everyone in the village was fasting a long month,when not a grain, not a drop of water passed between the parched lips of any able-bodied man, woman or child over the age of ten, when the sun was hotter than the cooking pot and dusk was just a febrile wish, the hypocrite went down to the pond to duck his head, to dive and sink, to drink and sink a little lower. p. 105 — Monica Ali

What was standing in my way was my own self-awareness. If I can begin this fasting of the heart, self-awareness will vanish. Then I will be free from limitation and preoccupation I Is that what you mean?" "Yes," said Confucius, "that's it! If you can do this, you will be able to go among men in their world without upsetting them. You will not enter into conflict with their ideal image of themselves. If they will listen, sing them a song. If not, keep silent. Don't try to break down their door. Don't try out new medicines on them. Just be there among them, because there is nothing else for you to be but one of them. Then you may have success! — Thomas Merton

All satyagraha and fasting is a species of tyaga. It depends for its effects upon an expression of wholesome public opinion shorn of all bitterness. — Mahatma Gandhi

I'm kind of like a middle mix between a warrior diet and a Paleo diet, so I only eat once a day and it's at night - so kind of like interval fasting. But I eat until I'm full, I eat as much as I want, and I really don't eat anything that you couldn't find, you know, 10,000 years ago. — Ronda Rousey

Guys," he says. "After this is over, can we go get a burger or something?"
"You're thinking about food now?" Carmel asks.
"Hey, you haven't spent the last three days fasting and doing herbal rue steams and drinking nothing but Morfran's gross chrysanthemum purification potions." Carmel and I grin at each other in the mirror. "It isn't easy becoming a vessel. I'm freaking starving. — Kendare Blake

When we reduce Christianity to a negative system where fasting becomes more sacred than feasting, law wins out over grace, and correct theology becomes more important than divine encounter, we in effect become the modern-day Pharisees - whose ministry Jesus was set against. — Debra Hirsch

Through fasting ... I have found a perfect health, a new state of existence, a feeling of purity and happiness, something unknown to humans. — Upton Sinclair

In vain do we seek tranquility in the desert; temptations are always with us; our passions, represented by the demons, never let us alone: those monsters created by the heart, those illusions produced by the mind, those vain specters that are our errors and our lies always appear before us to seduce us; they attack us even in our fasting or our mortifications, in other words, in our very strength. — Montesquieu

Above all else, he was afire with heavenly love, unassumingly patient, devoted to unceasing prayer, and kindly to all who came to him for comfort. He regarded as equivalent to prayer the labour of helping the weaker brethren with advice, remembering that he who said, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God', also said, 'Love thy neighbour'. His self-discipline and fasting were exceptional, and through the grace of contrition he was always intent on the things of heaven. Lastly, whenever he offered the sacrifice of the Saving Victim of God, he offered his prayers to God not in a loud voice but with tears welling up from the depths of his heart. — Bede

Fasting (is) for the maintainance and firmness of your sincerity. — Fatima Bint Muhammad

Wherever you are, you must be very happy; because I am fasting for your happiness forever — M.F. Moonzajer

Fasting humbles you and brings clarity, even allowing you to get unforgiveness and bitterness out of your heart. — Jentezen Franklin

We know Satan will attack weak spots first. Forty days of fasting left Jesus famished, so Satan began with the topic of bread. Jesus' stomach was empty, so to the stomach Satan turned.
Where are you empty? Are you hungry for attention, craving success, longing for intimacy? Be aware of your weaknesses. Bring them to God before Satan brings them to you. Satan will tell you to turn stones into bread (Matt 4:3). In other words, meet your own needs, take matters into your own hands. — Max Lucado

Fasting is as sensual as eating. Being celibate is as sensual as having sex. They're just different choices, different videos that you've selected to view tonight. — Frederick Lenz

Fasting is not bodily hunger but bodily elevation and purity. It is not a body that hungers and longs for food, but a body that rids itself of the desire to eat. Fasting is a time when the soul flourishes and lifts the body up with it. It rids the body of its loads and burdens and lifts it up so that God may work with it without impediment to the happiness of the spiritual entity. — Pope Shenouda III Of Alexandria

Fasting is like spring cleaning for your body. — Jentezen Franklin

When I walk in the forest just before the meal, while reciting the scriptural phrase that I "meditate" for that day, spiritual joy comes over me as if by appointment. — Adalbert De Vogue

? People are still ill from the after-effects of these priestly quack-cures! For example, think of certain diets (avoidance of meat), of fasting, sexual abstinence — Anonymous

From beginning to end, our Christian lives - highs and lows, fasting and fornication - are a tapestry of grace.
Charis: God's Scandalous Grace for Us (p. 31). — Preston Sprinkle

If a fly gets into the throat of one who is fasting, it is not necessary to pull it out. — Ruhollah Khomeini

Fasting is not nearly so deadly as feasting. — J. Harold Smith

If love were only spiritual, the practices of fasting and prayer would not exist. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Anyone who has fallen into fornication, adultery or any other such bodily impurity, should desist from this revolting filth and cleanse himself through confession, tears, fasting and the like. For God judges unrepentant fornicators and adulterers. He condemns them, dismisses them and consigns them to hell, unquenchable fire and other never-ending punishments, saying, 'Let the impure and accursed be taken away, lest they see and enjoy the glory of the Lord' (cf. Isa. 26:10 LXX). — Gregory Palamas

There is but one power which heals - that is God. The state or condition through which the healing takes place is the confidence of the heart. By some this state is reached through pills, powders, and physicians. By others through hygiene, fasting, and prayer. By others through direct perception. — Abdu'l- Baha

Prayers belong strictly to the worship of God. Fasting is a subordinate aid, which is pleasing to God no farther than as it aids the earnestness and fervency of prayer. — John Calvin

The philosophy of fasting calls upon us to know ourselves, to master ourselves, and to discipline ourselves the better to free ourselves. To fast is to identify our dependencies, and free ourselves from them. — Tariq Ramadan

The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie.
It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for
heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is not
the X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality we
drink in every night. — John Piper

Having soon discovered to be great, I must appear so, and therefore studiously avoided mixing in society, and wrapped myself in mystery, devoting my time to fasting and prayer. — Nat Turner

There is power in prayer, but there is added power in a combination of fasting and prayer. — Billy Joe Daugherty

Maybe what you care most passionately about are fasting and high colonics
cappuccino enemas, say. This is fine, but we do not want you to write about them; we will secretly believe that you are simply spiritualizing your hysteria. There are millions of people already doing this at churches and New Age festivals across the land. — Anne Lamott

Fasting will break poverty from your life. — Jentezen Franklin

Whether we are feasting or fasting or somewhere in between, food should have a sacred role in our lives. It can be something we sacrifice, something we savor, something we share, and through it all we can remain fulfilled because we are grounded in God, the only One who can satisfy our hungry hearts. — Mary DeTurris Poust

Most cultures traditionally link food and spirituality directly with periodic restrictions and celebrations punctuating the year. Abstinence from particular foods or full-on fasting is part of many religious traditions and holidays. — Marcus Samuelsson

To gain victory over the flesh was the purpose of fasting and celibacy, which denied the pleasures of this world for the sake of reward in the next. — Barbara Tuchman

To discipline ourselves through fasting brings us in tune with God, and fast day provides an occasion to set aside the temporal so that we might enjoy the higher qualities of the spiritual. As we fast on that day we learn and better understand the needs of those who are less fortunate. — Howard W. Hunter

When giving, praying, and fasting are practiced together in the life of a believer, it creates a type of threefold cord that is not easily broken. — Jentezen Franklin

When a person eats shortly before going to bed, digestion accompanies sleep. The two great physiological functions are completed together, leaving the maximum of freedom to the mind during the day. — Adalbert De Vogue

Don't go into Ramadan having hurt anyone without seeking their forgiveness. The last thing you'd want on the day of judgment is to find that your entire Ramadan with all of its quran recitation, fasting, taraweeh prayers, laylatul qadr, etc. went completely to waste because your pride stopped you from saying "I'm sorry". With that being said, I'm sorry if I've written, said, or done anything to offend you. Please find it in your heart to forgive and make dua that Allah grants me guidance and sincerity. — Omar Suleiman

The man of wisdom is devoid of ego even though he may appear to use it. His vacant or fasting mind is neither doing anything nor not doing anything. He is outside of volition, neither this nor that. He is everything and nothing. — Ramesh S Balsekar

Professor Morgulis wrote: "The acuity of the senses is increased by fasting, and at the end of his 31 days' abstinence from food, Professor Levanzin could see twice as far as he could when his fast began. — Hilton Hotema

We must continue in prayer if we are to get an outpouring of the Spirit. Christ says there are some things we shall not get, unless we pray and fast, yes, "prayer and fasting." We must control the flesh and abstain from whatever hinders direct fellowship with God. — Bonar Law

Praise belongs to God who appointed among those roads His month, the month of Ramadan, the month of fasting, the month of submission, the month of purity, the month of putting to test, the month of standing in prayer, in which the Quran was sent down as guidance to the people, and as clear signs of the Guidance and the Separator. — Imam Zayn Al 'Abidin Al-Sahifat Al-Sajjadiyya

I would that ye should come unto Christ, who is the Holy One of Israel, and partake of his salvation, and the power of his redemption. Yea, come unto him, and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him, and continue in fasting and praying, and endure to the end; and as the Lord liveth ye will be saved. — Joseph Smith Jr.

For the most part the regular profession has either ignored or else denounced fasting. Fasting is a fad or it is quackery. They do not study it, do not employ it and do not endorse it. On the contrary, they declare that the sick must eat to keep up their strength. — Herbert M. Shelton

Fasting is calculated to bring a note of urgency and importance into our praying, and to give force to our pleading in the court of heaven. The man who prays with fasting is giving heaven notice that he is truly in earnest. — Arthur Wallis

The light of the world will illuminate within you when you fast and purify yourself. — Mahatma Gandhi

Where are the people today who will respond to the call of Christ? Have we become so accustomed to "cheap grace" that we instinctively shy away from more demanding calls to obedience? "Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross."4 Why has the giving of money, for example, been unquestionably recognized as an element in Christian devotion and fasting so disputed? Certainly we have as much, if not more, evidence from the Bible for fasting as we have for giving. Perhaps in our affluent society fasting involves a far larger sacrifice than the giving of money. — Richard J. Foster

Quit playing, start praying. Quit feasting, start fasting. Talk less with men, talk more with God. Listen less to men, listen to the words of God. Skip travel, start travail. — Leonard Ravenhill

Eid is a time of joy, after a season of fasting and prayer and reflection. Each year, the end of Ramadan means celebration and thanksgiving for millions of Americans. And your joy during this season enriches the life of our great country. This year, Eid is celebrated at the same time as Hanukkah and Advent. So it's a good time for people of these great faiths, Islam, Judaism and Christianity, to remember how much we have in common: devotion to family, a commitment to care for those in need, a belief in God and His justice, and the hope for peace on earth. — George W. Bush

Solitude well practiced will break the power of busyness, haste, isolation, and loneliness. You will see that the world is not on your shoulders after all. Your will find yourself, and God will find you in new ways. Silence also brings Sabbath to you. It completes solitude, for without it you cannot be alone. Far from being a mere absence, silence allows the reality of God to stand in the midst of your life. God does not ordinarily compete for our attention. In silence we come to attend. Lastly, fasting is done that we many consciously experience the direct sustenance of God to our body and our whole person. — Dallas Willard

We observe that in the scriptures, fasting almost always is linked with prayer. Without prayer, fasting is not complete fasting; it's simply going hungry. — Joseph B. Wirthlin

Fasting cleanses the soul, raises the mind, subjects one's flesh to the spirit, renders the heart contrite and humble, scatters the clouds of concupiscence, quenches the fire of lust, and kindles the true light of chastity. Enter again into yourself. — Saint Augustine

You see, even after decades of therapy and workshops and retreats and twelve-steps and meditation and even experiencing a very weird session of rebirthings, even after rappeling down mountains and walking over hot coals and jumping out of airplanes and watching elephant races and climbing the Great Wall of China, and even after floating down the Amazon and taking ayahuasca with an ex-husband and a witch doctor and speaking in tongues and fasting (both nutritional and verbal), I remained pelted and plagued by feelings of uncertainty and despair. Yes, even after sleeping with a senator, and waking up next to a dead friend, and celebrating Michael Jackson's last Christmas with him and his kids, I still did not feel - how shall I put this? - mentally sound. — Carrie Fisher

Fasting is not just a physical discipline; it can be a spiritual feast. — Jentezen Franklin

Reading has a kernel to it, and the mere shed is little worth. In prayer there is such a thing as praying in prayer - a praying that is in the bowels of the prayer. So in praise there is a praising in song, an inward fire of intense devotion which is the life of the hallelujah. It is so in fasting: there is a fasting which is not fasting, and there is an inward fasting, a fasting of the soul, which is the soul of fasting. It is even so with the reading of the Scriptures. There is an interior reading, a kernel reading - a true and living reading of the Word. This is the soul of reading; and, if it be not there, the reading is a mechanical exercise, and profits nothing. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

It dawned upon me that fasting could be made as powerful a weapon of indulgence as of restraint — Mahatma Gandhi

But you begin now to realise," said the Invisible Man, "the full disadvantage of my condition. I had no shelter - no covering - to get clothing was to forego all my advantage, to make myself a strange and terrible thing. I was fasting; for to eat, to fill myself with unassimilated matter, would be to become grotesquely visible again. — H.G.Wells

I have always looked upon a telephone as an official kind of machine which you prepared for with fasting and prayer, and only had recourse to when strictly necessary for important business. — C.N. Williamson

He who buries his head deep into a nosebag full of food cannot hope to see the invisible world. — Al-Ghazali

I don't think I can put my finger exactly on when remission occurred, because from that moment on, I left Western medicine and never looked back. I practiced every day for ten to twelve hours a day - spiritual studies, meditation, pranayama, yoga postures, Ayurvedic studies, deep, deep, powerful cleansings and fasting. — Brad Willis

Join a company of young men and women who have made a covenant by sacrifice to turn a nation through united massive fasting and prayer. — Lou Engle

Obedience, fasting, and prayer are laughed at, yet only through them lies the way to real true freedom. I cut off my superfluous and unnecessary desires, I subdue my proud and wanton will and chastise it with obedience, and with God's help I attain freedom of spirit and with it spiritual joy. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The encrusted religious structure is not changed by its institutional dependents--they are part of the crust. It is changed by one who goes alone to the wilderness, where he fasts and prays, and returns with cleansed vision. In going alone, he goes independent of institutions, forswearing orthodoxy ("right opinion"). In going to the wilderness he goes to the margin, where he is surrounded by the possibilities--by no means all good--that orthodoxy has excluded. By fasting he disengages his thoughts from the immediate issues of livelihood; his willing hunger takes his mind off the payroll, so to speak. And by praying he acknowledges ignorance; the orthodox presume to know, whereas the marginal person is trying to find out. He returns to the community, not necessarily with new truth, but with a new vision of the truth; he sees it more whole than before. — Wendell Berry

Jerome was a marvelous advocate of chastity: yet hear his confession: "O, how often have I thought myself to be in the midst of the vain delights and pleasures of Rome, even when I was in the wild wilderness." Again, "I, who for fear of hell had condemned myself to such a prison, thought myself oftentimes to be dancing among young women, when I had no other company, but scorpions and wild beasts. My face was pale with fasting, but my mind was inflamed with desires in my cold body: and although my flesh was half-dead already, yet the flames of fleshly lust, boiled within me, etc. — Martin Luther

Prayer can come in only when fasting has done its work. It can make fasting easy and bearable. — Mahatma Gandhi

The supremacy of God in all things is the great
reward we long for in fasting. His supremacy in our own affections and in all our life-choices. His supremacy in the purity of the church. His supremacy in the salvation of the lost. His
supremacy in the establishing of righteousness and justice. And his supremacy for the joy of all peoples in the evangelization of the world. — John Piper

Fasting may not be as easy as feasting, but after a while it is not too different. Both are extremes. It is not hard to go the extreme way, but what is really difficult is neither to fast nor to feast, but to be moderate in everything we do. — Eknath Easwaran

The Prophet answered: "How could I but be a thankful servant?"1 He did not demand of his Companions the worship, fasting, and meditations that he exacted of himself. — Tariq Ramadan

There is an unseen sweetness in the stomach's emptiness. We are lutes. When the sound box is filled, no music can come forth. When the brain and the belly burn from fasting, every moment a new song rises out of the fire. The mists clear, and a new vitality makes you spring up the steps before you ... — Rumi

Supposed to be commissioned by the Church, the pardoners would sell absolution for any sin from gluttony to homicide, cancel any vow of chastity or fasting, remit any penance for money, most of which they pocketed. — Barbara W. Tuchman

Fasting, coupled with mighty prayer, is powerful. — Joseph B. Wirthlin

Practice at hunger makes the fast easier. — Julie Orringer

To become grateful, I must learn that I can handle disappointment and delayed gratification with grace and perseverance. This is why practices such as fasting and simplicity are such powerful tools for transformation. The experience of frustration and disappointment is irreplaceable in the development of a grateful heart. — John Ortberg

Fasting and feasting are universal human responses, and any meal, shared with love, can be an agape. — Elise M. Boulding

One of my confreres sketched an explanation that attracted me: since the process of digestion is under the control of the brain, its cessation gave repose to the brain, allowed it a vacation. — Adalbert De Vogue

His [Daniel] fast broke the power of the delayer and released the angels of God so that God's purposes could be revealed and served. — Jentezen Franklin

I believe that there is no prayer without fasting and there is no real fast without prayer. — Mahatma Gandhi

[B]y far the larger number of the dreams ... occurred towards dawn; sometimes even, after sunrise, during a "second sleep." A condition of fasting, united, possibly, with some subtle magnetic or other atmospheric state, seems therefore to be that most open to impressions of the kind. — Anna Kingsford

I came because I wanted to be the one to break the news to you. No amount of prayers, confessions in a wooden booth, counting rosary beads, kneeling before a cross, or fasting will purify a soul. Once you've welcomed evil inside you, there is no turning back. Heaven will reject you. — Ashlan Thomas

While fasting, people refrain from fulfilling their basic desires for food, drink and sexual relations. This shows them that their mission in this religion is to control their desires and not allow their desires to control them and to overcome their desires and not be overcome by them. By doing so they take the path of self-rectification and do not fall into that which corrupts them. — Habib Umar Bin Hafiz

There are some who died because they were fasting, and they were crammed in tight. — Thaksin Shinawatra