Endure your hunger of being full – so that you do not earn yourself prejudice and fall into deep sorrow. Remember that you were wrong more than once and wish for yourself to not be wrong again, so that you don’t become your own cruel murderer.

Do not submit yourself to the passions of the flesh, but convert your bodily longing for food and drink into a godly wish so that the longing of God would cast away the passions and pleasures of the flesh and would give your soul its natural comfort. Because it was written “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).

(Translation from Sfântul Dimitrie al Rostovului, Alfabetul duhovnicesc, Editura Sophia, București, 2007, p. 40)