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Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index E > John Evelyn, Quotes

Thumbnail of  John Evelyn, (source)
John Evelyn,
(31 Oct 1620 - 27 Feb 1706)

English diarist and author.


Science Quotes by John Evelyn, (4 quotes)

August 29, 1662. The council and fellows of the Royal Society went in a body to Whitehall to acknowledge his Majesty’s royal grace to granting our charter and vouchsafing to be himself our founder; then the president gave an eloquent speech, to which his Majesty gave a gracious reply and we all kissed his hand. Next day, we went in like manner with our address to my Lord Chancellor, who had much prompted our patent.
— John Evelyn,
Science quotes on:  |  Acknowledge (33)  |  Body (557)  |  Chancellor (8)  |  Charter (4)  |  Council (9)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Founder (26)  |  Funding (20)  |  Grace (31)  |  Himself (461)  |  King (39)  |  Kiss (9)  |  Lord (97)  |  Majesty (21)  |  Next (238)  |  Patent (34)  |  President (36)  |  Prompt (14)  |  Reply (58)  |  Royal (56)  |  Royal Society (17)  |  Society (350)  |  Speech (66)

July 11, 1656. Came home by Greenwich ferry, where I saw Sir J. Winter’s project of charring sea-coal to burn out the sulphur and render it sweet [coke]. He did it by burning the coals in such earthen pots as the glassmen melt their metal, so firing them without consuming them, using a bar of iron in each crucible, or pot, which bar has a hook at one end, that so the coals being melted in a furnace with other crude sea-coals under them, may be drawn out of the pots sticking to the iron, whence they are beaten off in great half-exhausted cinders, which being rekindled make a clear pleasant chamber-fire deprived of their sulphur and arsenic malignity. What success it may have, time will discover.
— John Evelyn,
Science quotes on:  |  Arsenic (10)  |  Being (1276)  |  Burn (99)  |  Burning (49)  |  Cinder (6)  |  Coal (64)  |  Coke (4)  |  Crucible (8)  |  Crude (32)  |  Discover (571)  |  End (603)  |  Fire (203)  |  Furnace (13)  |  Great (1610)  |  Home (184)  |  Iron (99)  |  Metal (88)  |  Mineralogy (24)  |  Other (2233)  |  Project (77)  |  Render (96)  |  Saw (160)  |  Sea (326)  |  Success (327)  |  Sulphur (19)  |  Sweet (40)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)  |  Winter (46)

March 24, 1672. I saw the surgeon cut off the leg of a wounded sailor, the stout and gallant man enduring it with incredible patience without being bound to his chair as usual on such painful occasions. I had hardly courage enough to be present. Not being cut off high enough, the gangrene prevailed, and the second operation cost the poor creature his life.
— John Evelyn,
Science quotes on:  |  Amputation (2)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bound (120)  |  Chair (25)  |  Cost (94)  |  Courage (82)  |  Creature (242)  |  Cut (116)  |  Enough (341)  |  Gangrene (3)  |  High (370)  |  Incredible (43)  |  Leg (35)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  March (48)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Operation (221)  |  Patience (58)  |  Poor (139)  |  Present (630)  |  Prevail (47)  |  Sailor (21)  |  Saw (160)  |  Surgeon (64)  |  Wound (26)

The frost continuing more and more severe, the Thames before London was still planted with booths in formal streets … so that it see’d to be a bacchanalian triumph or carnival on the water, whilst it was a severe judgement on the land, the trees not only splitting as if lightning-struck, but men and cattle perishing in diverse places, and the very seas so lock’d up with ice, that no vessels could stir out or come in. London, by reason of the smoke, was so filled with the fuliginous steame of the sea-coale, that hardly could one see crosse the streets, and this filling the breast, so as one could hardly breath. Here was no water to be had from the pipes and engines, nor could the brewers and divers other tradesmen worke, and every moment was full of disastrous accidents.
— John Evelyn,
Writing about the Great Frost (1683-84).
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Breath (61)  |  Carnival (2)  |  Cattle (18)  |  Coal (64)  |  Disaster (58)  |  Engine (99)  |  Frost (15)  |  Ice (58)  |  Lightning (49)  |  London (15)  |  Meteorology (36)  |  Moment (260)  |  More (2558)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perish (56)  |  Plant (320)  |  Reason (766)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Smoke (32)  |  Still (614)  |  Stir (23)  |  Thames (6)  |  Tree (269)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Water (503)


See also:
  • 31 Oct - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Evelyn's birth.

Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
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