Florence Nightingale Quotes about Nursing

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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?

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.

I 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.

The symptoms or the sufferings generally considered to be inevitable and incident to the disease are very often not symptoms of the disease at all, but of something quite different-of the want of fresh air, or of light, or of warmth, or of quiet, or of cleanliness, or of punctuality and care in the administration of diet, of each or of all of these.

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

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

I use the word nursing for want of a better. It has been limited to signify little more than the administration of medicines and the application of poultices. It ought to signify the proper use of fresh air, light, warmth, cleanliness, quiet, and the proper selection and administration of diet-all at the least expense of vital power to the patient.

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

It may seem a strange principle to enunciate as the very first requirement in a Hospital that it should do the sick no harm. It is quite necessary nevertheless to lay down such a principle.

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.

To understand God's thoughts, one must study statistics, for these are the measure of His purpose.

May we hope that, when we are all dead and gone, leaders will arise who have been personally experienced in the hard, practical work, the difficulties, and the joys of organizing nursing reforms, and who will lead far beyond anything we have done!

Apprehension, uncertainty, waiting, expectation, fear of surprise, do a patient more harm than any exertion.

There is no part of my life, upon which I can look back without pain.

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.

I use the word nursing for want of a better.

Never to allow a patient to be waked, intentionally or accidentally, is a sine qua non of all good nursing.