fig quotes

But beside it I have planted a green Bay-tree, A sweet Bay, an Olive, and aTurkey Fig, A Fig, an Olive, and a Bay.

- (Mary) Ursula Bethell
  From a Garden in the Antipodes,'Detail'.

And when the woman saw that the tree wasgood for food, and that it waspleasanttothe eyes,and atreetobe desired to make one wise she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also to her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them bothwere opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of the L God walking inthegarden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the L God amongst the trees of the garden.

-Bible (Old Testament)
ORDORDGenesis 3:6^8. In the GenevaBible of1560, the word'aprons'was rendered'breeches', and the versionwas therefore known as the Breeches Bible.

A fig for those by law protected! Liberty's a glorious feast! Courts for Cowards were erected, Churches built to please the Priest.

- Robert Burns
c.1786  'The  Jolly Beggars', or 'Love and Liberty, a Cantata', chorus to a song to the tune'Jolly Mortals, fill your glasses'.

Fig leaves of democratic procedure to hide the nakedness of Stalinist dictatorship.

- George Frost Kennan
Of postwar agreements to govern Eastern Europe. Quoted in Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas The Wise Men (1986).

They called aloud 'Our Sieve ain't big, But we don't care a button! We don't care a fig!'

- Edward Lear
Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany and  Alphabets,'The Jumblies'.

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig- tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked.One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet†I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig-tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

- Sylvia Plath
  The BellJar, ch.7.