Many dishes bring many diseases.

Contact with [menstrual blood] turns new wine sour, crops touched by it become barren, grafts die, seed in gardens are dried up, the fruit of trees fall off, the edge of steel and the gleam of ivory are dulled, hives of bees die, even bronze and iron are at once seized by rust, and a horrible smell fills the air; to taste it drives dogs mad and infects their bites with an incurable poison.

The happier the moment the shorter.

Grief has limits, whereas apprehension has none. For we grieve only for what we know has happened, but we fear all that possibly may happen.

It is this earth that, like a kind mother, receives us at our birth, and sustains us when born; it is this alone, of all the elements around us, that is never found an enemy of man.

Simple diet is best: for many dishes bring many diseases, and rich sauces are worse than even heaping several meats upon each other.

Wine takes away reason, engenders insanity, leads to thousands of crimes, and imposes such an enormous expense on nations.