No greater thing is created suddenly any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom then bear fruit then ripen.

It is my feeling that Time ripens all things with Time all things are revealed Time is the father of truth.

The insufferable arrogance of human beings to think that Nature was made solely for their benefit as if it was conceivable that the sun had been set afire merely to ripen men's apples and head their cabbages.

The sun with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.

Nothing great is created suddenly any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig. I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom then bear fruit then ripen.

It is not all bad this getting old ripening. After the fruit has got its growth it should juice up and mellow. God forbid I should live long enough to ferment and rot and fall to the ground in a squash.

Wishing to be friends is quick work but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.

Fulfill - you can far more than fulfill - the brightest anticipations of those who in the name of human freedom and in the face of threats that have ripened into terrible realities since fought that battle which placed you where you now stand.

To 'choose' dogma and faith over doubt and experience is to throw out the ripening vintage and to reach greedily for the Kool-Aid.

Age is not all decay it is the ripening the swelling of the fresh life within that withers and bursts the husk.