It is obscene for gourmand people and those attached to carnal pleasures to think of spiritual things, like a prostitute talking about sobriety. And just as when the body suffers from very serious illness, it avoids fat foods, so the mind cannot reach divine things when it engages in the secular ones. Just as a fire cannot ignite wet wood, so divine fire cannot warm the heart that loves to rest. Just as the prostitute is not confined to a single lover, so the soul that engages in many things cannot comprehend the most important ones, the divine.
Isaac the Syrian
*The article was originally published in Greek in ikivotos.gr