Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Fruits (Unclassified)
The kindly fruits of the earth.
Book of Common Prayer. Litany.
Nothing great is produced suddenly, since not even the grape or the fig is. If you say to me now that you want a fig, I will answer to you that it requires time: let it flower first, then put forth fruit, and then ripen.
Epictetus—Discourses. What Philosophy Promises. Ch. XV. Geo. Long’s trans.
Eve, with her basket, was
Deep in the bells and grass
Wading in bells and grass
Up to her knees,
Picking a dish of sweet
Berries and plums to eat,
Down in the bells and grass
Under the trees.
Ralph Hodgson—Eve.
Ye shall know them by their fruits.
Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
Matthew. VII. 16; 20.
Each tree
Laden with fairest fruit, that hung to th’ eye
Tempting, stirr’d in me sudden appetite
To pluck and eat.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. VIII. L. 30.
But the fruit that can fall without shaking,
Indeed is too mellow for me.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu—Answered for.
Thus do I live, from pleasure quite debarred,
Nor taste the fruits that the sun’s genial rays
Mature, john-apple, nor the downy peach.
John Philips—The Splendid Shilling. L. 115.
The strawberry grows underneath the nettle
And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
Neighbour’d by fruit of baser quality.
Henry V. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 60.
Fruits that blossom first will first be ripe.
Othello. Act II. Sc. 3. L. 383.
Before thee stands this fair Hesperides,
With golden fruit, but dangerous to be touched.
Pericles. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 27.
The ripest fruit first falls.
Richard II. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 153.
Superfluous branches
We lop away, that bearing boughs may live.
Richard II. Act III. Sc. 4. L. 63.
The barberry and currant must escape
Though her small clusters imitate the grape.
Tate—Cowley.
Let other lands, exulting, glean
The apple from the pine,
The orange from its glossy green,
The cluster from the vine.
Whittier—The Corn Song.