Top 94 Quotes & Sayings by Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Those persons who suffer from indigestion, or who become drunk, are utterly ignorant of the true principles of eating and drinking.

Vegetables, which are the lowest in the scale of living things, are fed by roots, which, implanted in the native soil, select by the action of a peculiar mechanism, different subjects, which serve to increase and to nourish them.

The sense of smell explores; deleterious substances almost always have an unpleasant smell.

The first thing we become convinced of is that man is organized so as to be far more sensible of pain than of pleasure.

The torrent of centuries rolling over the human race, has continually brought new perfections, the cause of which, ever active though unseen, is found in the demands made by our senses, which always in their turns demand to be occupied.

When I need a word and do not find it in French, I select it from other tongues, and the reader has either to understand or translate me. Such is my fate.

All languages had their birth, their apogee and decline.

The senses are the organs by which man places himself in connexion with exterior objects.

The sense of smell, like a faithful counsellor, foretells its character.

The discovery of a new dish confers more happiness on humanity, than the discovery of a new star.

The German Doctors say that persons sensible of harmony have one sense more than others.

Sight and touch, being thus increased in capacity, might belong to some species far superior to man; or rather the human species would be far different had all the senses been thus improved.

Hearing, which, by the motion of the air, informs us of the motion of sounding or vibrating bodies.

I am essentially an amateur medecin, and this to me is almost a mania.

Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are.

All men, even those we call savages, have been so tormented by the passion for strong drinks, that limited as their capacities were, they were yet able to manufacture them.

Nothing is more pleasant than to see a pretty woman, her napkin well placed under her arms, one of her hands on the table, while the other carries to her mouth, the choice piece so elegantly carved.

Taste, which enables us to distinguish all that has a flavor from that which is insipid.

The centuries last passed have also given the taste important extension; the discovery of sugar, and its different preparations, of alcoholic liquors, of wine, ices, vanilla, tea and coffee, have given us flavors hitherto unknown.

I will only observe, that that ethereal sense - sight, and touch, which is at the other extremity of the scale, have from time acquired a very remarkable additional power.

The number of flavors is infinite, for every soluble body has a peculiar flavor, like none other.

I appreciate the potato only as a protection against famine, except for that, I know of nothing more eminently tasteless.

Whosoever says truffle, utters a grand word, which awakens erotic and gastronomic ideas.

The destiny of nations depends on how they nourish themselves.

Place a substantial meal before a tired man and he will eat with effort and be little better for it at first. Give him a glass of wine or brandy, and immediately he feels better: you see him come to life again before you.

The universe is nothing without the things that live in it, and everything that lives, eats.

The pleasures of the table belong to all times and ages, to every country and every day; they go hand in hand with all our other pleasures, outlast them, and remain to console us for their loss.

The table is the only place where we do not get weary during the first hour.

Cooking is one of the oldest arts and one which has rendered us the most important service in civic life.

Seating themselves on the greensward, they eat while the corks fly and there is talk, laughter and merriment, and perfect freedom, for the universe is their drawing room and the sun their lamp. Besides, they have appetite, Nature's special gift, which lends to such a meal a vivacity unknown indoors, however beautiful the surroundings.

Animals feed themselves; men eat; but only wise men know the art of eating

The Spanish ladies of the New World are madly addicted to chocolate, to such a point that, not content to drink it several times each day, they even have it served to them in church.

Let the progress of the meal be slow, for dinner is the last business of the day; and let the guests conduct themselves like travelers due to reach their destination together.

A man who was fond of wine was offered some grapes at dessert after dinner. "Much obliged," said he, pushing the plate aside, "I am not accustomed to take my wine in pills."

Every cure of obesity must begin with these three essential precepts:discretion in eating, moderation in sleeping, and exercise.

It has been shown as proof positive that carefully prepared chocolate is as healthful a food as it is pleasant; that it is nourishing and easily digested... that it is above all helpful to people who must do a great deal of mental work.

Dessert without cheese is like a beauty with only one eye

The pleasure of the table belongs to all ages, to all conditions, to all countries, and to all areas; it mingles with all other pleasures, and remains at last to console us for their departure.

To invite people to dine with us is to make ourselves responsible for their well-being for as long as they are under our roofs.

Those from whom nature has withheld taste invented trousers.

The most indispensable qualification of a cook is punctuality. The same must be said of guests.

The truffle is not a positive aphrodisiac, but it can upon occasion make women tenderer and men more apt to love.

Smell and taste are in fact but a single composite sense, whose laboratory is the mouth and its chimney the nose.

The limits of pleasure are as yet neither known nor fixed, and that we have no idea what degree of bodily bliss we are capable of attaining.

Food is all those substances which, submitted to the action of the stomach, can be assimilated or changed into life by digestion, and can thus repair the losses which the human body suffers through the act of living.

In the state of society in which we now find ourselves, it is difficult to imagine a nation which lived solely on bread and vegetables.

If any man has drunk a little too deeply from the cup of physical pleasure; if he has spent too much time at his desk that should have been spent asleep; if his fine spirits have become temporarily dulled; if he finds the air too damp, the minutes too slow, and the atmosphere too heavy to withstand; if he is obsessed by a fixed idea which bars him from any freedom of thought: if he is any of these poor creatures, we say, let him be given a good pint of amber-flavored chocolate... and marvels will be performed.

Gourmandise is an impassioned, rational, and habitual preference for all objects which flatter the sense of taste.

Once fire was discovered, the instinct for improvement made men bring food to it. First to dry it, then to put it on the coals to cook.

The fate of a nation depends on the way that they eat.

A meal without wine is like a day without sun

To know how to eat well, one must first know how to wait.

Alcohol is the monarch of liquids.

Those who have been too long at their labor, who have drunk too long at the cup of voluptuousness, who feel they have become temporarily inhumane, who are tormented by their families, who find life sad and love ephemeral......they should all eat chocolate and they will be comforted.

I am not accustomed to take my wine in pills.

An intelligently planned feast is like a summing up of the whole world, where each part is represented by its envoys.

Poultry is for the cook what canvas is for a painter, or the cap of Fortunatus for a conjurer.

Burgundy makes you think of silly things; Bordeaux makes you talk about them, and Champagne makes you do them.

He who receives his friends and gives no personal attention to the meal which is being prepared for them, is not worthy of having friends.

You first parents of the human race...who ruined yourself for an apple, what might you have done for a truffled turkey?