John Evelyn Quotations

Explore everything; keep the best

As Paradise (though of God's own Planting) was no longer Paradise than the Man was put into it, to dress it and to keep it, so nor will our Gardens remain long in their perfection unless they are also continually cultivated.

I am utterly against those confused Olios, into which men put almost all kinds of meats and Roots.

Our blessed Savior chose the Garden for his Oratory, and dying, for the place of his Sepulchre; and we do avouch for many weighty causes, that there are none more fit to bury our dead in than in our Gardens and Groves, where our Beds may be decked with verdant and fragrant flowers, Trees and Perennial Plants, the most natural and instructive Hieroglyphics of our expected Resurrection and Immortality.

Here we supped . . ., having amongst other dainties, a dish of truffles, an earth nut found by an hogg trained to it.

This knight was indeed a valiant gentleman; but not a little given to romance, when he spake of himself.

Mulberry Garden, now the only place of refreshment about the town for persons of the best quality to be exceeding cheated at.

By reason of its soporigous quality, lettuce ever was, and still continues the principal foundation of the universal tribe of Sallets, which is to cool and refresh, besides its other properties... including beneficial influences on morals, temperance, and chastity.

We adorn graves with flowers and redolent plants, just emblems of the life of man, which has been compared in the Holy Scriptures to those fading beauties whose roots, being buried in dishonor, rise again in glory.

Chestnuts are delicacies for princes and a lusty and masculine food for rusticks, and able to make women well-complexioned.