Quotes by Florence Nightingale

Unnecessary noise is the most cruel abuse of care which can be inflicted on either the sick or the well.

Live your life while you have it. Life is a splendid gift. There is nothing small in it. For the greatest things grow by God's Law out of the smallest. But to live your life you must discipline it. You must not fritter it away in "fair purpose, erring act, inconstant will" but make your thoughts, your acts, all work to the same end and that end, not self but God. That is what we call character.

I am of certain convinced that the greatest heroes are those who do their duty in the daily grind of domestic affairs whilst the world whirls as a maddening dreidel.

Our first journey is to find that special place for us.

Never underestimate the healing effects of beauty.

For the sick it is important to have the best.

Nature alone cures. ... what nursing has to do ... is to put the patient in the best condition for nature to act upon him.

The most important practical lesson than can be given to nurses is to teach them what to observe.

Let us never consider ourselves finished nurses....we must be learning all of our lives.

Nursing is an art: and if it is to be made an art, it requires an exclusive devotion as hard a preparation as any painter's or sculptor's work; for what is the having to do with dead canvas or dead marble, compared with having to do with the living body, the temple of God's spirit? It is one of the Fine Arts: I had almost said, the finest of Fine Arts.

The very first requirement in a hospital is that it should do the sick no harm.

Nursing is one of the Fine Arts: I had almost said, the finest of Fine Arts.

Let whoever is in charge keep this simple question in her head (not, how can I always do this right thing myself, but) how can I provide for this right thing to be always done?

If I could give you information of my life it would be to show how a woman of very ordinary ability has been led by God in strange and unaccustomed paths to do in His service what He has done in her. And if I could tell you all, you would see how God has done all, and I nothing. I have worked hard, very hard, that is all; and I have never refused God anything.

Live life when you have it. Life is a splendid gift-there is nothing small about it.

I think one's feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results.

Life is a hard fight, a struggle, a wrestling with the principle of evil, hand to hand, foot to foot. Every inch of the way is disputed. The night is given us to take breath, to pray, to drink deep at the fountain of power. The day, to use the strength which has been given us, to go forth to work with it till the evening.

Nursing is a progressive art such that to stand still is to go backwards.

How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.

I attribute my success to this - I never gave or took any excuse.

Nursing is an art: and if it is to be made an art, it requires an exclusive devotion as hard a preparation as any painter's or sculptor's work.

For us who Nurse, our Nursing is a thing, which, unless in it we are making progress every year, every month, every week, take my word for it we are going back. The more experience we gain, the more progress we can make.