“To use bitter words, when kind words are at hand,
Is like picking unripe fruit when the ripe fruit is there.”

“I like your smile but I ain't your type, Don't shake the tree when the fruit ain't ripe”

Robert Hunter (1941–2019) American musician

“Kind hearts are the gardens, Kind thoughts are the roots, Kind words are the flowers, Kind deeds are the fruits, Take care of your garden And keep out the weeds, Fill it with sunshine, Kind words, and Kind deeds.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

“In the increasingly convincing darkness
The words become palpable, like a fruit
That is too beautiful to eat.”

John Ashbery (1927–2017) poet from the United States

“Words are like Leaves; and where they most abound,
Much Fruit of Sense beneath is rarely found.”

Alexander Pope An Essay on Criticism

“Do you know what worship is? Everything belongs to the Lord, so what is there to offer to Him? But the Master used to tell us: 'Once a rich man went to visit his orchard. He saw the gardeners busy with their work. The caretaker approached him and presented him with a ripe papaya, saying: "Sir, I picked this ripe fruit for you yesterday. Please accept it." Now the owner knows that the garden, the trees, the fruit all belong to him; but won't he appreciate the love and thoughtfulness of the caretaker? Worship is like this.'”

Swami Adbhutananda Disciple

“If it could only be like this always – always summer, always alone, the fruit always ripe and Aloysius in a good temper…”

Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966) British writer

“A mother's hardest to forgive.
Life is the fruit she longs to hand you
Ripe on a plate. And while you live,
Relentlessly she understands you.”

Phyllis McGinley (1905–1978) writer and poet

“Give me juicy autumnal fruit, ripe and red from the orchard."

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Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

“The roots of education … are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy