Lavender Quotes in Literature (Quotes about Lavender)

Here are some of the most famous lavender quotes old and new, together with who said them, where and when. If you need a lavender quote for your paper or presentation, here are many of the best.

Lavender has a long literary past. With its fine fragrance, medicinal and culinary value, as well as its history of favor at court, lavender waxes poetic in these famous, infamous and memorable quotes and passages. 

Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir (1908 - 1986)

I am thinking of the lavender in my garden. It is like drinking a glass of cold water when you are really thirsty.” – Simone de Beauvoir

Deborah Lawrenson, The Sea Garden (2014)

At the door to the shop, a bell tinkled, and moments later they seemed to enter the very flowering of lavender. The scent was all around them; it curled and diffused in the air with a sweet warmth and subtlety, then burst with a peppery, musky intensity.

Culpeper, The Complete Herbal (1652) 

Being an inhabitant almost in every garden, it is so well known, that it needs no description.

Alice Hoffman, Practical Magic (1995)

There's a few things I've learned in life: always throw salt over your left shoulder, keep rosemary by your garden gate, plant lavender for good luck, and fall in love whenever you can.

Plant lavender for luck

John Gerard, Herball (1597) 

The floures of Lavender picked from the knaps, I meane the blew part and not the husk, mixed with Cinnamon, Nutmeg, and Cloves, made into powder, and given to drinke in the distilled water thereof, doth helpe the panting and passion of the heart, previaleth against giddinesse, turning or swimming of the brain, and members subject to the palsie.

French Lavander hath a body like Lavander, short and of woodie substance, but slenderer, beset with long narrow leaves, of a whitish colour, lesser than those of Lavender, it hath in the top bushe or spikie heads, well compact or thrust together, out the which grow forth small purple flowers or a pleasant smell. The seede is small and blackish: The roote is harde and woodie.

Ramakrishna (1836 - 1886)

When the flower blossoms, the bees come uninvited.

Lavender makes a wonderful bookmark

Shakespeare, Winter's Tale, iv. 4 

Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram;

The marigold, that goes to bed wi' th' sun,
And with him rises weeping; these are flow'rs
Of middle summer, and I think they are given
To men of middle age.

 

Clement Robinson, Handefull of Pleasant Delites (1584) 

Lavender is for lovers true, Which evermore be faine; Desiring always for to have Some pleasure for their paine: And when that they obtained have The love that they require, Then have they all their perfect joie, And quenched is the fire.

Turner, Herbal (1545)

I judge that the flowers of lavender quilted in a cappe and dayly worn are good for all diseases of the head that come of a cold cause and that they comfort the braine very well.

 

Tennyson, Ode to Memory (1830) 

Opening upon level plots Of crowned lilies standing near Purple spiked lavender. 

William Makepeace Thackery, The Virginian (1857)

What woman, however old, has not the bridal-favours and raiment stowed away, and packed in lavender, in the inmost cupboards of her heart.

Is lavender your favorite herb?

Laura Chouette, The Painting of Mrs. Ravensbrook(2017)

Her love was like lavender,

delicate and melancholy.”

Lavender and Yardley Soap Ad

The soap that’s kept women in hot water for 200 years—and they’ve loved every minute.

Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens (1983) 

Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender.

Cervante, Don Quixote (1804)

. . .but to go round the world and play at give and take with giants and dragons and monsters, and hear hissings and roarings and bellowings and howlings, and even all of this would be lavender, if we had not to reckon with Yanguesans and enchanted Moors.

O'Keeffe, A Beggar on Horseback (1798) 

My dear, have some lavender, or you'd best have a thimble full of wine, your spirits are quite down, my sweeting.

What's your favorite lavender book quote?

Joanne Bailli,   The Election, (1798)

Oh, they are such savages! I'm sure if I had not put lavender on my pocket handkerchief, like Mama, I should have fainted away.

More lavender sayings, quotes to enjoy:

Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration (2010)

When hope is fleeting, stop for a moment and visualize, in a sky of silver, the crescent of a lavender moon. Imagine it -- delicate, slim, precise, like a paper-thin slice from a cabochon jewel.

It may not be very useful, but it is beautiful.

And sometimes it is enough.”

Jarod Kintz, The Lewis and Clark of The Ozarks (2017

Before the blue of night meets the pink of sunrise, there is a transition of lavender. It's a gradient of color that stretches its fade through time, and that gives each moment a unique and exquisite existence.

Roxburghe Ballads (17th century)

Here’s fine rosemary, sage and thyme.

Come, buy my ground ivy. 

Here’s featherfew, gilliflowers and rue. 

Come, buy my knotted marjoram, ho!

Come, buy my mint, my fine green mint.

Here’s fine lavender for your cloaths, 

Here’s parseley and winter savory,

And heartsease which all do choose.

Here’s balm and hyssop and cinquefoil,

All fine herbs it is well known.

Let none despise the merry, 

merry criesOf famous London Town.

Here’s penny royal and marygolds.

Come, buy my nettle-tops.

Here’s water-cresses and scurvy grass,

Come buy my sage of virtue, ho!

Come, buy my wormwood and mugworts.

Here’s all fine herbs of every sort.

Here’s southernwood that’s very good.

Dandelion and houseleek.

Here’s dragon’s tongue and wood sorrel,

With bear’s-foot and horehound.

Let none despise the merry, merry cries

Of famous London Town.

Elizabeth Bard, Picnic in Provence: A Memoir with Recipes (2015)

Just as the first sun-kissed apricots arrive at the market, lavender fields all over Provence are bursting into bloom. They are a perfect pair.”

Diana Gabaldon, Outlander (1991)

We walked past fields of lavender, their purple rows stretching endlessly towards the horizon. The air was thick with their sweet scent, a heavy perfume that hung in the warm afternoon sun." 

Lucinda Riley, The Lavender Garden (2013)

Her herb garden was a riot of color and scent. Lavender and rosemary brushed against her legs as she knelt, the scent earthy and clean." 

Lisa Kleypas, It Happened One Autumn (2015)

She wandered to one of the lavender stalks and touched the tiny violet-blue blossoms, and brought her scented fingertips to her throat. "They extract the essential oil by forcing steam through the plants and drawing off the liquid. It takes something like five hundred pounds of lavender plants to produce just a few precious ounces of oils.

Lady Rosalind Northcote, The Book of Herbs 1903

Lavender and rosemary, and rue, the feathery fennel, and the bright blue borage, are all pretty bushes in their way, and might have a due place assigned to them by the hand of beauty and taste.

Is lavender the most romantic herb?

Shenstone, The Schoolmistress (1942)

And lavender, whose spikes of azure bloom 

Shall be, ere-while, in arid bundles bound

To lurk amidst the labours of her loom,

And crown her kerchiefs clean with mickle rare perfume.

Cowley, Of Plants, book ii (1663)

Lavender, Corn-rose, Pennyroyal sate,

And that which cats esteem so delicate

After a while slow-pac’d with much ado,

Ground pine, with her short legs, crept hither too.

Michael Drayton, Eclogue (1612)

Who now a posie pins not in his cap?

And not a garland baldrick-wise doth wear,

Some, of such flowers as to his hand doth hap

Others, such as secret meanings bear.

He, from his lass, him lavender hath sent

Shewing her love, and doth requital crave,

Him rosemary, his sweetheart whose intent,

Is that he her should in remembrance have.

Roses, his youth and strong desire express,

Her sage, doth show his sovereignty in all;

The July-flower declares his gentleness;

Thyme, truth; the pansie, heartsease, maidens’ call.

What's your favorite lavender saying?

Paula McLain, The Paris Wife 2011

It was our favorite part of the day, this in-between time, and it always seemed to last longer than it should--a magic and lavender space unpinned from the hours around it, between worlds.

Lady Rosalind Northcote, The Book of Herbs (1903)

"I judge that the flowers of Lavander quilted in a cappe and dayly worne are good for all diseases of the head that come of a cold cause and that they comfort the braine very well." Dr Fernie says it is of real use in a case of nervous headache. Lavender used to be called Lavender Spike or Spike alone, and French Lavender (L. Stæchas) Stickadove or Cassidony, sometimes turned by country people into Cast-me-down. 

La petite Corbeille tells us that the juice of Lavender is a specific in cases of loss of speech and adds drily, "une telle propriété suffirait pour rendre cette plante à jamais precieuse." In Spain and Portugal it is used to strew churches and it is burned in bonfires on St John’s Day, the day when all evil spirits are abroad. In some countries it must still possess wonderful qualities! Tuscan peasants believe that it will prevent the Evil Eye from hurting children.

 If you have a favorite lavender quote I've missed, please take a moment to comment about it below.

For more information on lavender, visit my lavender page:

• Growing, Keeping and Propagating Lavender

For more herb quotes, visit: Rosemary Quotes From Literature