Florence Nightingale Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 100 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Florence Nightingale.
Famous Quotes By Florence Nightingale
Unnecessary noise is the most cruel abuse of care which can be inflicted on either the sick or the well. — Florence Nightingale
I would earnestly ask my sisters to keep clear of both the jargons now current everywhere (for they are equally jargons); of the jargon, namely, about the "rights" of women, which urges women to do all that men do, including the medical and other professions, merely because men do it, and without regard to whether this is the best that women can do; and of the jargon which urges women to do nothing that men do, merely because they are women, and should be "recalled to a sense of their duty as women," and because "this is women's work," and "that is men's," and "these are things which women should not do," which is all assertion and nothing more. Surely woman should bring the best she has, whatever that is, to the work of God's world, without attending to either of these cries. — Florence Nightingale
What the horrors of war are, no one can imagine. They are not wounds and blood and fever, spotted and low, or dysentery, chronic and acute, cold and heat and famine. They are intoxication, drunken brutality, demoralization and disorder on the part of the inferior ... jealousies, meanness, indifference, selfish brutality on the part of the superior. — Florence Nightingale
The account he gives of nurses beats everything that even I know of. This young prophet says that they are all drunkards, without exception, Sisters and all, and that there are but two whom the surgeon can trust to give the patients their medicines. — Florence Nightingale
We set the treatment of bodies so high above the treatment of souls, that the physician occupies a higher place in society than the school-master. — Florence Nightingale
Never speak to an invalid from behind, nor from the door, nor from any distance from him, nor when he is doing anything. The official politeness of servants in these things is so grateful to invalids, that many prefer, without knowing why, having none but servants about them. — Florence Nightingale
Poetry and imagination begin life. A child will fall on its knees on the gravel walk at the sight of a pink hawthorn in full flower, when it is by itself, to praise God for it. — Florence Nightingale
I am not yet worthy; and I will live to deserve to be called a Trained Nurse. — Florence Nightingale
A dark house is always an unhealthy house, always an ill-aired house, always a dirty house. Want of light stops growth and promotes scrofula, rickets, etc., among the children. People lose their health in a dark house, and if they get ill, they cannot get well again in it. — Florence Nightingale
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. — Florence Nightingale
When you see the natural and almost universal craving in English sick for their 'tea,' you cannot but feel that nature knows what she is about ... A little tea or coffee restores them ... There is nothing yet discovered which is a substitute to the English patient for his cup of tea. — Florence Nightingale
Mysticism: to dwell on the unseen, to withdraw ourselves from the things of sense into communion with God - to endeavour to partake of the Divine nature; that is, of Holiness. — Florence Nightingale
I have lived and slept in the same bed with English countesses and Prussian farm women ... no woman has excited passions among women more than I have. — Florence Nightingale
Christ, if he had been a woman, might have been nothing but a great complainer — Florence Nightingale
The specific disease doctrine is the grand refuge of weak, uncultured, unstable minds, such as now rule in the medical profession. There are no specific diseases; there are specific disease conditions. — Florence Nightingale
No woman has excited "passions" among women more than I have. Yet I leave no school behind me. — Florence Nightingale
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. — Florence Nightingale
Every nurse ought to be careful to wash her hands very frequently during the day. If her face, too, so much the better. — Florence Nightingale
You do not want the effect of your good things to be, "How wonderful for a woman!" nor would you be deterred from good things, by hearing it said, "Yes, but she ought not to have done this, because it is not suitable for a woman." But you want to do the thing that is good, whether it is "suitable for a woman" or not.
It does not make a thing good, that it is remarkable that a woman should have been able to do it. Neither does it make a thing bad, which would have been good had a man done it, that it has been done by a woman.
Oh, leave these jargons, and go your way straight to God's work, in simplicity and singleness of heart. — Florence Nightingale
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. — Florence Nightingale
Law is no explanation of anything; law is simply a generalization, a category of facts. Law is neither a cause, nor a reason, nor a power, nor a coercive force. It is nothing but a general formula, a statistical table. — Florence Nightingale
The family uses people, not for what they are, nor for what they are intended to be, but for what it wants them for- its own uses. It thinks of them not as what God has made them, but as the something which it has arranged that they shall be. — Florence Nightingale
When shall we see a life full of steady enthusiasm, walking straight to its aim, flying home, as that bird is now, against the wind - with the calmness and the confidence of one who knows
the laws of God and can apply them? — Florence Nightingale
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. — Florence Nightingale
Badly constructed houses do for the healthy what badly constructed hospitals do for the sick. Once insure that the air in a house is stagnant, and sickness is certain to follow. — Florence Nightingale
Passion, intellect, moral activity - these three have never been satisfied in a woman. In this cold and oppressive conventional atmosphere, they cannot be satisfied. To say more on this subject would be to enter into the whole history of society, of the present state of civilisation. — Florence Nightingale
I think one's feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results. — Florence Nightingale
Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better. — Florence Nightingale
Live life when you have it. Life is a splendid gift-there is nothing small about it. — Florence Nightingale
Moral activity? There is scarcely such a thing possible! Everything is sketchy. The world does nothing but sketch. — Florence Nightingale
Newton's law is nothing but the statistics of gravitation, it has no power whatever.
Let us get rid of the idea of power from law altogether. Call law tabulation of facts, expression of facts, or what you will; anything rather than suppose that it either explains or compels. — Florence Nightingale
The martyr sacrifices themselves entirely in vain. Or rather not in vain; for they make the selfish more selfish, the lazy more lazy, the narrow narrower. — Florence Nightingale
Women have no sympathy and my experience of women is almost as large as Europe. — Florence Nightingale
Macaulay somewhere says, that it is extraordinary that, whereas the laws of the motions of the heavenly bodies, far removed as they are from us, are perfectly well understood, the laws of the human mind, which are under our observation all day and every day, are no better understood than they were two thousand years ago. — Florence Nightingale
Women dream till they have no longer the strength to dream; those dreams against which they so struggle, so honestly, vigorously, and conscientiously, and so in vain, yet which are their
life, without which they could not have lived; those dreams go at last. — Florence Nightingale
Do not meet or overtake a patient who is moving about in order to speak to him or to give him any message or letter. You might just as well give him a box on the ear. I have seen a patient fall flat on the ground who was standing when his nurse came into the room. — Florence Nightingale
The very first requirement in a hospital is that it should do the sick no harm. — Florence Nightingale
The craving for 'the return of the day', which the sick so constantly evince, is generally nothing but the desire for light. — Florence Nightingale
I use the word nursing for want of a better. — Florence Nightingale
Sick children, if not too shy to speak, will always express this wish. They invariably prefer a story to be told to them, rather than read to them. — Florence Nightingale
It seems a commonly received idea among men and even among women themselves that it requires nothing but a disappointment in love, the want of an object, a general disgust, or incapacity for other things, to turn a woman into a good nurse.
This reminds one of the parish where a stupid old man was set to be schoolmaster because he was "past keeping the pigs. — Florence Nightingale
To understand God's thoughts we must study statistics, for these are the measure of his purpose. — Florence Nightingale
I have learned to know God. I have recast my social belief ... All my admirers are married; most of my friends are dead; and I stand with all the world before me, where to choose a path to make in it. — Florence Nightingale
I never lose an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however small. — Florence Nightingale
A want of the habit of observing and an inveterate habit of taking averages are each of them often equally misleading. — Florence Nightingale
Women never have a half-hour in all their lives (excepting before or after anybody is up in the house) that they can call their own, without fear of offending or of hurting someone. 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.' 1852 — Florence Nightingale
I can expect no sympathy or help from my family. — Florence Nightingale
How very little can be done under the spirit of fear. — Florence Nightingale
Heaven is neither a place nor a time. — Florence Nightingale
I can stand out the war with any man. — Florence Nightingale
The night is given to us to take breath, to pray, to drink deep at the fountain of power. — Florence Nightingale
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. — Florence Nightingale
All disease, at some period or other of its course, is more or less a reparative process, not necessarily accompanied with suffering: an effort of nature to remedy a process of poisoning or of decay, which has taken place weeks, months, sometimes years beforehand, unnoticed. — Florence Nightingale
Wise and humane management of the patient is the best safeguard against infection. — Florence Nightingale
The very elements of what constitutes good nursing are as little understood for the well as for the sick. The same laws of health or of nursing, for they are in reality the same, obtain among the well as among the sick. — Florence Nightingale
The time is come when women must do something more than the "domestic hearth," which means nursing the infants, keeping a pretty house, having a good dinner and an entertaining party. — Florence Nightingale
A woman cannot live in the light of intellect. Society forbids it. Those conventional frivolities, which are called her 'duties', forbid it. Her 'domestic duties', high-sounding words, which, for the most part, are but bad habits (which she has not the courage to enfranchise herself from, the strength to break through), forbid it. — Florence Nightingale
You ask me why I do not write something ... I think one's feelings waste themselves in words, they ought all to be distilled into actions and into actions which bring results. — Florence Nightingale
Everything you do in a patient's room, after he is 'put up' for the night, increases tenfold the risk of his having a bad night. But, if you rouse him up after he has fallen asleep, you do not risk - you secure him a bad night. — Florence Nightingale
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. — Florence Nightingale
It is very well to say "be prudent, be careful, try to know each other." But how are you to know each other? — Florence Nightingale
People talk about imitating Christ, and imitate Him in the little trifling formal things, such as washing the feet, saying His prayer, and so on; but if anyone attempts the real imitation of Him, there are no bounds to the outcry with which the presumption of that person is condemned. — Florence Nightingale
It is the unqualified result of all my experience with the sick that, second only to their need of fresh air, is their need of light; that, after a close room, what hurts them most is a dark room and that it is not only light but direct sunlight they want. — Florence Nightingale
Religious men are and must be heretics now- for we must not pray, except in a "form" of words, made beforehand- or think of God but with a prearranged idea. — Florence Nightingale
Never give nor take an excuse. — Florence Nightingale
The world is put back by the death of every one who has to sacrifice the development of his or her peculiar gifts to conventionality. — Florence Nightingale
Patriotism is not enough, there must be no hatred or bitterness for anyone. — Florence Nightingale
The next Christ will perhaps be a female Christ. — Florence Nightingale
The amount of relief and comfort experienced by the sick after the skin has been carefully washed and dried, is one of the commonest observations made at a sick bed. — Florence Nightingale
Never underestimate the healing effects of beauty. — Florence Nightingale
I stand at the altar of murdered men, and, while I live, I fight their cause. — Florence Nightingale
Never to allow a patient to be waked, intentionally or accidentally, is a sine qua non of all good nursing. — Florence Nightingale
There are no specific diseases only specific disease conditions — Florence Nightingale
Hospitals are only an intermediate stage of civilization, never intended ... to take in the whole sick population. May we hope that the day will come ... when every poor sick person will have the opportunity of a share in a district sick-nurse at home. — Florence Nightingale
Woman has nothing but her affections,
and this makes her at once more loving and less loved. — Florence Nightingale
In a sick-room or a bed-room there should never be shutters shut. — Florence Nightingale
Bismarck was a large persian cat owned by Florence Nightingale. — Florence Nightingale
If a patient is cold, if a patient is feverish, if a patient is faint, if he is sick after taking food, if he has a bed-sore, it is generally the fault not of the disease, but of the nursing. — Florence Nightingale
I attribute my success to this: - I never gave or took an excuse. — Florence Nightingale
At present we live to impede each other's satisfactions; competition, domestic life, society, what is it all but this? — Florence Nightingale
To be "in charge" is certainly not only to carry out the proper measures yourself but to see that every one else does so too; to see that no one either willfully or ignorantly thwarts or prevents such measures. It is neither to do everything yourself nor to appoint a number of people to each duty, but to ensure that each does that duty to which he is appointed. — Florence Nightingale
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. — Florence Nightingale
Remember my name
you'll be screaming it later. — Florence Nightingale
God spoke to me and called me to His Service. What form this service was to take the voice did not say. — Florence Nightingale
Why have women passion, intellect, moral activity these, three and a place in society where no one of the three can be exercised? — Florence Nightingale
Volumes are now written and spoken upon the effect of the mind upon the body. Much of it is true. But I wish a little more was thought of the effect of the body on the mind. — Florence Nightingale
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. — Florence Nightingale
For the sick it is important to have the best. — Florence Nightingale
Go into a room where the shutters are always shut (in a sick-room or a bed-room there should never be shutters shut), and though the room be uninhabited-though the air has never been polluted by the breathing of human beings, you will observe a close, musty smell of corrupt air-of air unpurified by the effect of the sun's rays. — Florence Nightingale
Rather, ten times, die in the surf, heralding the way to a new world, than stand idly on the shore. — Florence Nightingale
The true foundation of theology is to ascertain the character of God. It is by the aid of Statistics that law in the social sphere can be ascertained and codified, and certain aspects of the character of God thereby revealed. The study of statistics is thus a religious service. — Florence Nightingale
There is no part of my life, upon which I can look back without pain. — Florence Nightingale
Can the "word" be pinned down to either one period or one church? All churches are, of course, only more or less unsuccessful attempts to represent the unseen to the mind. — Florence Nightingale
Diseases, as all experience shows, are adjectives, not noun substantives. — Florence Nightingale
Starting a job and working hard is how to be successful. — Florence Nightingale
Variety of form and brilliancy of color in the object presented to patients are an actual means of recovery. — Florence Nightingale