21 Quotes & Sayings By Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale was a British social reformer and statistician. She is most famous for her innovative methods of nursing care at the Scutari Hospital during the Crimean War, a hospital which later became a model for modern nursing. The siege of Scutari, so called because it was located on the outskirts of the Turkish fortresses on the Dardanelles Strait, occurred from September 1853 to February 1856. In her book, Notes on Nursing, Florence Nightingale outlined a system of practical nursing that included detailed descriptions of how to maintain cleanliness, give medicines, and deal with wounds and disease Read more

While this particular work was intended to help nurses in their duties, it also demonstrated how she believed an attentive approach to all aspects of patient care could help any person lead a healthier life.

1
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
I must strive to see only God in my friends,...
2
I must strive to see only God in my friends, and God in my cats. Florence Nightingale
3
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
4
Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better. Florence Nightingale
5
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
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Were there none who were discontented with what they have the world would never reach anything better. Florence Nightingale
7
A human being does not cease to exist at death. It is change not destruction which takes place. Florence Nightingale
8
How very little can be done under the spirit of fear. Florence Nightingale
9
One's feelings waste themselves in words they ought all to be distilled into action ... which bring results. Florence Nightingale
10
The very first requirement in a hospital is that it should do the sick no harm. Florence Nightingale
11
I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took an excuse. Florence Nightingale
12
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
13
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
14
Women have no sympathy and my experience of women is almost as large as Europe. Florence Nightingale
15
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
16
Wise and humane management of the patient is the best safeguard against infection. Florence Nightingale
17
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. Florence Nightingale
18
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
19
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
20
I attribute my success to this - I never gave or took any excuse. Florence Nightingale