Top 43 Most Inspiring Florence Nightingale Quotes

Looking for the best and inspirational Florence Nightingale quotes?

Florence Nightingale was the founder of the nursing profession and is regarded as the founder of modern nursing. She introduced professional nursing to the world and pioneered many other innovations in nursing care during her lifetime.

Florence Nightingale was born on May 12, 1820, to Thomas and Sarah Nightingale. Her father worked as a secretary at a British military hospital in Florence, Italy. Florence was born with a weak lung disease that limited her life expectancy to six months old, but she lived for 21 years.

She spent most of her childhood in France, where she received an education from private tutors before returning to England at age 15. She is widely viewed as an icon of medicine. Most people know her for improving care in hospitals during her time at St. Thomas Hospital in London. Still, few are aware of her contributions outside Europe during colonial expeditions to Turkey and Egypt.

Take a look at her inspiring and motivational quotes to get you on the right track and achieve your dreams.

43 Most Inspiring Florence Nightingale Quotes

“Never dispute with anybody who wishes to contradict you, says a most reasonable saint.“

“I attribute my success to this:—I never gave or took an excuse.“

“I did not think of going to give myself a position, but for the sake of common humanity.”

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

“Wise and humane management of the patient is the best safeguard against infection.“

“Unless we are making progress in our nursing every year, every month, every week, take my word for it we are going back.”

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

“Working hard is how to be successful.”

“To be ‘in charge’ is certainly not only to carry out the proper measures yourself but to see that everyone else does so too. “

“Live your life while you have it. Life is a splendid gift. There is nothing small in it. Far the greatest things grow by God’s law out of the smallest. But to live your life, you must discipline it.“

“The first possibility of rural cleanliness lies in water supply.”

“It is very well to say “be prudent, be careful, try to know each other.” But how are you to know each other?”

“For the sick it is important to have the best.”

“Why do people sit up so late, or, more rarely, get up so early? Not because the day is not long enough, but because they have no time in the day to themselves.”

“Rather, ten times, die in the surf, heralding the way to a new world, than stand idly on the shore.“

“So never lose an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however small, for it is wonderful how often in such matters the mustard-seed germinates and roots itself.”

“Never dispute with anybody who wishes to contradict you, says a most reasonable saint.”

“Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better.”

“The object and color in the materials around us actually have a physical effect on us, on how we feel.”

“What cruel mistakes are sometimes made by benevolent men and women in matters of business about which they know nothing and think they know a great deal.“

“People say the effect is only on the mind. It is no such thing. The effect is on the body, too. Little as we know about the way in which we are affected by form, by color, and light, we do know this, that they have an actual physical effect. Variety of form and brilliancy of color in the objects presented to patients are actual means of recovery.”

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

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

“I attribute my success to this – I never gave or took any excuse.”

“No man, not even a doctor, ever gives any other definition of what a nurse should be than this – ‘devoted and obedient’.”

“A human being does not cease to exist at death. It is change, not destruction, which takes place.”

“So never lose an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however small, for it is wonderful how often in such matters the mustard-seed germinates and roots itself.“

“If a nurse declines to do these kinds of things for her patient, ‘because it is not her business’, I should say that nursing was not her calling.“

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

“By mortifying vanity we do ourselves no good. It is the want of interest in our life which produces it; by filling up that want of interest in our life we can alone remedy it.”

“Little as we know about the way in which we are affected by form, by color, and light, we do know this, that they have an actual physical effect.”

“The greatest heroes are those who do their duty in the daily grind of domestic affairs whilst the world whirls as a maddening dreidel.”

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

“Everything is sketchy. The world does nothing but sketch.“

“Mankind must make heaven before we can “go to heaven” (as the phrase is), in this world as in any other.”

“I think one’s feelings waste themselves in words, they ought all to be distilled into actions and into actions which bring results.“

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

“And what nursing has to do in either case, is to put the patient in the best condition for nature to act upon him.“

“For the sick it is important to have the best.“

“Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better.“

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

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

“What cruel mistakes are sometimes made by benevolent men and women in matters of business about which they can know nothing and think they know a great deal.”

Must Read

Related Articles