“Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it.”
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Ralph Waldo Emerson 727
American philosopher, essayist, and poet 1803–1882Related quotes

Source: The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (1942), p. 465

Frequently attributed to Nin, but without cited source in her work (possibly due to a quotation in Living on Purpose: Straight Answers to Universal Questions (2000) by Dan Millman that attributed the quote to Nin without source).
In March 2013, a former Director of Public Relations at John F. Kennedy University in Orinda, Elizabeth Appell, claimed she had authored the quote in 1979 for an inspirational header on a class schedule: http://anaisninblog.skybluepress.com/2013/03/who-wrote-risk-is-the-mystery-solved/
Disputed
Variant: The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Letters and Papers from Prison (1967; 1997), The Friend

Epitaph on an Infant
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.”
sc. iii. Compare: "The sweet remembrance of the just Shall flourish when he sleeps in dust", Tate and Brady, Psalm cxxii.
The Contention of Ajax and Ulysses

Source: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), Chance (1947), p. 277

Love is Enough (1872), Song III: It Grew Up Without Heeding