Florence Nightingale

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

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

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

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

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

Florence Nightingale

The night is given to us to take breath, to pray, to drink deep at the fountain of power.

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

Florence Nightingale

There are no specific diseases only specific disease conditions.

Florence Nightingale

There is a physical, not moral, impossibility of supplying the wants of the intellect in the state of civilisation at which we have arrived.

Florence Nightingale