On Caring For One's Self

"You are under obligation to the wise and to the foolish; are you the only one to whom you deny yourself?  Fool and sage, salve and free man, rich and poor, male and female, old and young, clerk and lay, just and wicked:  all have a like share in you, all drink at the public fountain of your heart, and will stand apart and thirst?  If the man who squanders his portion is accursed, what of the one who wholly renders himself destitute?  Certainly let your streams of water flow in the public squares; let men and beasts of burden and cattle slake their thirst; by all means water even the camels of Abraham's servant; but make sure you drink with the rest the water from your own well.  The stranger, says Scripture, is not to drink from it. Well, are you a stranger?  To whom are you not a stranger if you are a stranger to yourself?  In a word, if someone treats himself badly, whom will he treat well?" - Bernard of Clairvaux to Pope Eugenius III