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eat to live, not live to eat

eat to live, not live to eat proverb: it is best not to be gluttonous; eating shouldn't be one's favorite activity, but one should eat only to supply health.

Proverb

eat to live, not live to eat

  1. (imperative) It is best not to be gluttonous; eating shouldn't be one's favorite activity, but one should eat only to supply health.
    • Balance can be used to heighten matched pairs of ideas, as in the maxim "one should eat to live, not live to eat."2013, Carl H. Klaus, A Self Made of Words: Crafting a Distinctive Persona in Nonfiction Writing, →ISBN

Forms of eat to live, not live to eat

alternative formlive not to eat, but eat to live

Origin of eat to live, not live to eat

Often attributed to Socrates and Benjamin Franklin.

Questions about eat to live, not live to eat

What does eat to live, not live to eat mean?
Eat to live, not live to eat means it is best not to be gluttonous; eating shouldn't be one's favorite activity, but one should eat only to supply health.
What part of speech is eat to live, not live to eat?
Eat to live, not live to eat is a proverb.

Words near eat to live, not live to eat in the dictionary

  1. eat the leek
  2. eat the mic
  3. eat the onion
  4. eat the rich
  5. eat the seed corn
  6. eat to live, not live to eat
  7. eat to windward
  8. eat twat
  9. eat up
  10. eat up with a spoon
  11. eat what you kill

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: eat to live, not live to eat (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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