Florence Nightingale
To understand God's thoughts, one must study statistics, for these are the measure of His purpose.Collection: God
Unnecessary noise is the most cruel abuse of care which can be inflicted on either the sick or the well.Collection: Sick
A human being does not cease to exist at death. It is change, not destruction, which takes place.Collection: Religion
Never give nor take an excuse.Collection: Motivational
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.Collection: Giving
Rather, ten times, die in the surf, heralding the way to a new world, than stand idly on the shore.Collection: Nursing
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.Collection: Jesus
Remember my name-- you'll be screaming it later.Collection: Names
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!Collection: Nursing
I use the word nursing for want of a better.Collection: Nursing
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.Collection: Nursing
Apprehension, uncertainty, waiting, expectation, fear of surprise, do a patient more harm than any exertion.Collection: Nursing
Nursing is one of the Fine Arts: I had almost said, the finest of Fine Arts.Collection: Art
For the sick it is important to have the best.Collection: Science
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.Collection: Home
I am not yet worthy; and I will live to deserve to be called a Trained Nurse.Collection: Nurse
Christ, if he had been a woman, might have been nothing but a great complainerCollection: Might
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.Collection: Hurt
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.Collection: Health
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.Collection: Mind
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.Collection: Mind
I stand at the altar of murdered men, and, while I live, I fight their cause.Collection: Peace
Religion was important to me. My family and I were very religious. I acctualy believe the work I did was a calling from God himself.Collection: Religious
For what is Mysticism? It is not the attempt to draw near to God, not by rites or ceremonies, but by inward disposition? Is it not merely a hard word for 'The Kingdom of Heaven is within'? Heaven is neither a place nor a time.Collection: Diversity
There is no part of my life, upon which I can look back without pain.Collection: Pain
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.Collection: Vanity
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.Collection: God
Woman has nothing but her affections,--and this makes her at once more loving and less loved.Collection: Affection
I never lose an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however small...Collection: Nursing
That Religion is not devotion, but work and suffering for the love of God; this is the true doctrine of Mystics.Collection: Suffering
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.Collection: School
diseases, as all experience shows, are adjectives, not noun substantives.Collection: Adjectives
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.Collection: Passion
Averages ... seduce us away from minute observation.Collection: Science
The first possibility of rural cleanliness lies in water supply.Collection: Lying
The night is given to us to take breath, to pray, to drink deep at the fountain of power.Collection: Night
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.Collection: Unseen
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.Collection: Light
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.Collection: Mind
We know nothing of the principle of health, the positive of which pathology is the negative, except from observation and experience. Nothing but observation and experience will teach us the ways to maintain or to bring back the state of health. It is often thought that medicine is the curative process. It is no such thing; medicine is the surgery of functions as surgery proper is that of limbs and organs.Collection: Nursing
The only English patients I have ever known refuse tea, have been typhus cases; and the first sign of their getting better was their craving again for tea.Collection: Nursing
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.Collection: Law
There is a physical, not moral, impossibility of supplying the wants of the intellect in the state of civilisation at which we have arrived.Collection: Want
A nurse is to maintain the air within the room as fresh as the air without, without lowering the temperature.Collection: Nursing
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.Collection: Nursing
I attribute my success to this – I never gave or took any excuse.Collection: Success