Doing good

From the book of Dag Hammarskjold, Markings:

A modest wish: that our doings should have a somewhat greater significance for life than a man's dinner jacket has for his digestion. And yet a good deal of what we describe as our achievement is surely only a garment with which we seek on festive occasions to hide our nakedness. 

This is not the first time I've come across this analogy of the dinner jacket and digestion. I remember reading a passage from one of Anthony D'Mello's books and him speaking of religion.  Can't remember it exactly but something to the effect that 'Religion does to a man, as much a dinner jacket does to one's digestion.'