25 phrases by Florence Nightingale that praise the so important nurse

I think feelings are lost in words. All should be transformed into actions, into actions that bring results.

Nursing is an art; and to realize it as an art, requires as exclusive a devotion, as rigorous a preparation, as the work of any painter or sculptor; for what is dealing with dead canvas or cold marble compared with dealing with the living body, the temple of God’s spirit?

I attribute my success to this: I never gave or accepted apologies.

Live life when you have it. Life is a wonderful gift – there is nothing small about it.

I am convinced that the greatest heroes are those who do their duty in the daily grind of domestic affairs while the world spins maddeningly.

I use the word nursing for lack of a better one. It has been limited to meaning little more than administering medication and applying plasters. It must mean the proper use of fresh air, light, heat, cleanliness, tranquility, the proper selection and administration of a diet – all at the least expenditure of vital energy for the patient.

The first requirement of a hospital is that it should never harm the sick.

If I could give you information from my life, it would be to show how a woman of very ordinary ability has been led by God in strange ways and unaccustomed to doing in His service what He has done in her.

The law is the continual manifestation of God’s presence – not a reason to believe in his absence.

Nursing is a progressive art, so standing still is going backwards.

I chose shifts, because I know that the dark of the night frightens the sick. I chose to be present in pain because I was already very close to suffering. I chose to serve others because I know that all of us, one day, will need help. I chose white because I want to convey peace. I chose to study working methods because books are a source of knowledge. I chose to be a nurse because I love and respect life!

No man, not even a doctor, ever gives any other definition of what a nurse should be than “Dedicated and Obedient.” This setting would do just as well for a doorman. It might even fit a horse. But not for a policeman.

There is care without a cure, but there is no cure without care.

May each founder empower as many as she can. Then the students will one day become new founders.

Women never have a half hour in all their lives that they can call their own without fear of offending or hurting someone.

What matters is not what fate does for us, but what we do with it.

The most important lesson a nurse can be taught is to teach her what to watch for, how to watch for it, which symptoms indicate improvement and which don’t, which are important and which are not.

There is a common idea that you need a heartbreak, a dislike, or not being able in other areas for a woman to be a good nurse.

If a nurse refuses to help a patient because “it’s none of her business,” I must say that nursing is not her calling.

I saw sisters by profession, women who earned two or three guineas a week, cleaning the floors on their knees because they felt the rooms were not suitable for their patients.

To educate is not to teach a man to know, but to do.

Women crave an education that teaches them how to teach, that teaches them the rules of the human mind and how to apply them.

You have to do rehearsals, you have to make efforts; some bodies have to fall into the gap so that others can pass over them.

I have a moral and active nature, which requires satisfaction and that I would not find if I spent my life in social engagements and organizing domestic things.