Quotes by Women Nurses

Florence Nightingale

Irena Sendler

Clara Barton

Edith Cavell

Elizabeth Fry

Mary Seacole

Dorothea Dix

The most important practical lesson that can be given to nurses is to teach them what to observe — how to observe — what symptoms indicate improvement — what the reverse — which are of importance — which are of none — which are the evidence of neglect — and of what kind of neglect.

Florence Nightingale

It is wise statesmanship which suggests that in time of peace we must prepare for war, and it is no less a wise benevolence that makes preparation in the hour of peace for assuaging the ills that are sure to accompany war.

Modern professional nursing was born in War.

Nursing prepares you for excellence. Be proud you are a nurse.

Nursing is not alone caring for the sick, the prevention of infection often constitutes as important a duty as the actual care of the patient. A woman who is without knowledge of the principles which should guide the performance of her work holds in her hands a capacity for doing infinite harm; she cannot avoid dangers which she does not recognize.

Justice we ask,—to be citizens of these United States, where so many of our people have shed their blood with their white comrades, that the stars and stripes should never be polluted.

Death is always terrible—no one need be ashamed to fear it.

The horizon for nursing expands exhilaratingly... The depth has not been sounded. So we explore depths and distances. The nugget of truth lies in the nurse-patient relation. The distant star is the health of the people.

Lucile Petry Leone

I am naturally fond of adventure, a little ambitious, and a good deal romantic - but patriotism was the true secret of my success.

Sarah Emma Edmonds

The record of one's life must needs prove more interesting to him who writes it than to him who reads what has been written.

Elizabeth Kenny

Man is not made better by being degraded; he is seldom restrained from crime by harsh measures, except the principle of fear predominates in his character; and then he is never made radically better for its influence.

It must never be lost sight of what observation is for. It is not for the sake of piling up miscellaneous information or curious facts, but for the sake of saving life and increasing health and comfort

Katharine Kolcaba

True love is not selfish. In time it accustoms itself to anything which secures happiness for its object.

Sarah Chauncey Woolsey

I give myself this advice: Do not fear truth, let it be ever so contrary to inclination and feeling. Never give up the search after it; and let me take courage, and try from the bottom of my heart to do that which I believe truth dictates, if it lead me to be a Quaker or not

You must understand that I did not become a resistance fighter, a smuggler of Jews, a defier of the SS and the Nazis, all at once. One's first steps are always small: I had begun by hiding food under a fence

Irene Gut Opdyke

Babies are a nuisance, of course. But so does everything seem to be that is worthwhile - husbands and books and committees and being loved and everything. We have to choose between ease and rich unrest.

A man with money to pay for a meal can talk about hunger without demeaning himself.... But for a man with no money hunger is a disgrace.

Someday, somehow, I am going to do something useful, something for people. They are, most of them, so helpless, so hurt and so unhappy.

I am the only person still alive of that rescuing group but I want everyone to know that, while I was coordinating our efforts, we were about twenty to twenty five people. I did not do it alone.

I always say I don't think everyone has the right to happiness or to be loved. Even the Americans have written into their constitution that you have the right to the 'pursuit of happiness'. You have the right to try but that is all.