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Florence Nightingale

65 quotes

“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.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) first seen 1847 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter quoted in Florence Nightingale in Rome : Letters Written by Florence Nightingale in Rome in the Winter of 1847-1848 (1981), edited by Mary Keele, and Suggestions for Thought : Selections and Commentaries (1994), …
“You must go to Mahometanism, to Buddhism, to the East, to the Sufis & Fakirs, to Pantheism, for the right growth of mysticism.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) first seen 1853 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (2 March 1853), quoted in Suggestions for Thought : Selections and Commentaries (1994), edited by Michael D. Calabria and Janet A. MacRae, p. xiii
“What the horrors of war are, no one can imagine — they are not wounds and blood and fever, spotted and low, or dysentery, chronic and acute, cold and heat and famine — they are intoxication, drunken brutality, demoralization and disorder on the part of the inferior, jealousies, meanness, indifference, selfish brutality on the part of the superior.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) first seen 1855 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (5 May 1855), published in Florence Nightingale : An Introduction to Her Life and Family (2001), edited by Lynn McDonald, p. 141
“I agree as to the doubtful value of competitive examination. The qualities which you really want, viz., self-control, self-reliance, habits of accurate thought, integrity and what you generally call trustworthiness, are not decided by competitive examination, which test little else than the memory.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) first seen 1857 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Lord Stanley (May 17, 1857), published in Florence Nightingale on Wars and the War Office: Collected Works of Florence Nightingale. Vol. 15 (2011), edited by Lynn McDonald, p. 265. (online on google books)
“Asceticism is the trifling of an enthusiast with his power, a puerile coquetting with his selfishness or his vanity, in the absence of any sufficiently great object to employ the first or overcome the last.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) first seen 1857 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (5 September 1857), quoted in The Life of Florence Nightingale (1913) by Edward Tyas Cook, p. 369
“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.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) first seen 1860 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Notes on Nursing (1860)
“No man, not even a doctor, ever gives any other definition of what a nurse should be than this — "devoted and obedient." This definition would do just as well for a porter. It might even do for a horse. It would not do for a policeman.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) first seen 1860 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Notes on Nursing (1860)
“Instead of wishing to see more doctors made by women joining what there are, I wish to see as few doctors, either male or female, as possible. For, mark you, the women have made no improvement — they have only tried to be men and they have only succeeded in being third-rate men.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) first seen 1860 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to John Stuart Mill (12 September 1860), published in Florence Nightingale on Society and Politics, Philosophy, Science, Education (2003) edited by Lynn McDonald
“God has taken away the greatest man of his generation, for Dr. Livingstone stood alone.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) first seen 1882 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Modern Heroes of the Mission Field (1882) by William Pakenham Walsh p. 281
“Hospitals are only an intermediate stage of civilization, never intended at all even to take in the whole sick population.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) first seen 1893 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Sick-Nursing and Health-Nursing" (1893)
“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 (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to a friend, quoted in The Life of Florence Nightingale (1913) by Edward Tyas Cook, p. 94
“The Church is now more like the Scribes and Pharisees than like Christ... What are now called the "essential doctrines" of the Christian religion he does not even mention.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Life of Florence Nightingale (1913) by Edward Tyas Cook, p. 392
“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.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to a friend, quoted in The Life of Florence Nightingale Vol. II (1914) by Edward Tyas Cook, p. 406
“Law is the continuous manifestation of God's presence — not reason for believing him absent. Great confusion arises from our using the same word law in two totally distinct senses … as the cause and the effect. It is said that to "explain away" everything by law is to enable us to do without God. But 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. Law brings us continually back to God instead of carrying us away from him.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Suggestions for Thought : Selections and Commentaries (1994), edited by Michael D. Calabria and Janet A. MacRae, p. 41
“Newton's law is nothing but the statistics of gravitation, it has no power whatever. Let us get rid of the idea of power from law altogether. Call law tabulation of facts, expression of facts, or what you will; anything rather than suppose that it either explains or compels.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Suggestions for Thought : Selections and Commentaries (1994), edited by Michael D. Calabria and Janet A. MacRae, p. 41
“To understand God's thoughts we must study statistics, for these are the measure of His purpose.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Chance Rules : An Informal Guide to Probability, Risk, and Statistics (1999) by Brian Everitt, p. 137
“Though he made a joke when asked to do the right thing, he always did it. He was so much more in earnest than he appeared. He did not do himself justice.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) first seen 1837 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, as quoted in Victorian England : Aspects of English and Imperial History, 1837-1901 (1973) by Lewis Charles Bernard Seaman, p. 108
“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 (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Parted Lips : Lesbian Love Quotes Through the Ages (2002) by Simone Rich
“How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Book of Positive Quotations (2007) by John Cook, p. 479
“I have had a larger responsibility of human lives than ever man or woman had before. And I attribute my success to this — I never gave or took an excuse. Yes, I do see the difference now between me and other men. When a disaster happens, I act and they make excuses.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) first seen 1861 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Miss H. Bonham Carter, 1861. As quoted in The Gigantic Book of Teachers' Wisdom (2007) by Frank McCourt and Erin Gruwell, p. 410
“The martyr sacrifices herself (himself in a few instances) entirely in vain. Or rather not in vain; for she (or he) makes the selfish more selfish, the lazy more lazy, the narrow narrower.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) first seen 1867 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Forever Yours (1990) by Martha Vicinus and Bea Nergaard , p. 275. Letter, c. 1867, to the scholar Benjamin Jowett.
“Perhaps, if prematurely we dismiss ourselves from this world, all may even have to be suffered through again — the premature birth may not contribute to the production of another being, which must be begun again from the beginning.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Why have women passion, intellect, moral activity — these three — and a place in society where no one of the three can be exercised? Men say that God punishes for complaining. No, but men are angry with misery. They are irritated with women for not being happy. They take it as a personal offence. To God alone may women complain without insulting Him!”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Suffering, sad "female humanity!" What are these feelings which they are taught to consider as disgraceful, to deny to themselves? What form do the Chinese feet assume when denied their proper development? If the young girls of the "higher classes," who never commit a false step, whose justly earned reputations were never sullied even by the stain which the fruit of mere "knowledge of good and evil" leaves behind, were to speak, and say what are their thoughts employed upon, their thoughts, which alone are free, what would they say?”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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. And, did we even see this, how can we make the difference? How obtain the interest which society declares she does not want, and we cannot want?”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What are novels? What is the secret of the charm of every romance that ever was written? The first thing in a good novel is to place the persons together in circumstances which naturally call out the high feelings and thoughts of the character, which afford food for sympathy between them on these points — romantic events they are called. The second is that the heroine has generally no family ties (almost invariably no mother), or, if she has, these do not interfere with her entire independence. These two things constitute the main charm of reading novels.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Give us back our suffering, we cry to Heaven in our hearts — suffering rather than indifferentism; for out of nothing comes nothing. But out of suffering may come the cure. Better have pain than paralysis! A hundred struggle and drown in the breakers. One discovers the new world. But rather, ten times rather, die in the surf, heralding the way to that new world, than stand idly on the shore!”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The progressive world is necessarily divided into two classes — those who take the best of what there is and enjoy it — those who wish for something better and try to create it. Without these two classes the world would be badly off. They are the very conditions of progress, both the one and the other. Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Poetry and imagination begin life. A child will fall on its knees on the gravel walk at the sight of a pink hawthorn in full flower, when it is by itself, to praise God for it.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a physical, not moral, impossibility of supplying the wants of the intellect in the state of civilisation at which we have arrived. The stimulus, the training, the time, are all three wanting to us; or, in other words, the means and inducements are not there. Look at the poor lives we lead. It is a wonder that we are so good as we are, not that we are so bad. In looking round we are struck with the power of the organisations we see, not with their want of power. Now and then, it is true, we are conscious that there is an inferior organisation, but, in general, just the contrary.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Women are never supposed to have any occupation of sufficient importance not to be interrupted, except "suckling their fools "; and women themselves have accepted this, have written books to support it, and have trained themselves so as to consider whatever they do as not of such value to the world or to others, but that they can throw it up at the first "claim of social life." They have accustomed themselves to consider intellectual occupation as a merely selfish amusement, which it is their " duty " to give up for every trifler more selfish than themselves.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People do not go into the company of their fellow-creatures for what would seem a very sufficient reason, namely, that they have something to say to them, or something that they want to hear from them; but in the vague hope that they may find something to say.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Society triumphs over many. They wish to regenerate the world with their institutions, with their moral philosophy, with their love. Then they sink to living from breakfast till dinner, from dinner till tea, with a little worsted work, and to looking forward to nothing but bed. When shall we see a life full of steady enthusiasm, walking straight to its aim, flying home, as that bird is now, against the wind — with the calmness and the confidence of one who knows the laws of God and can apply them?”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The "dreams of youth" have become a proverb. That organisations, early rich, fall far short of their promise has been repeated to satiety. But is it extraordinary that it should be so? For do we ever utilise this heroism? Look how it lives upon itself and perishes for lack of food. We do not know what to do with it. We had rather that it should not be there. Often we laugh at it. Always we find it troublesome. Look at the poverty of our life! Can we expect anything else but poor creatures to come out of it?”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The family uses people, not for what they are, nor for what they are intended to be, but for what it wants them for — its own uses. It thinks of them not as what God has made them, but as the something which it has arranged that they shall be.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At present we live to impede each other's satisfactions; competition, domestic life, society, what is it all but this? We go somewhere where we are not wanted and where we don't want to go. What else is conventional life? Passivity when we want to be active. So many hours spent every day in passively doing what conventional life tells us, when we would so gladly be at work. And is it a wonder that all individual life is extinguished?”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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. The governess is to have every one of God's gifts; she is to do that which the mother herself is incapable of doing; but our son must not degrade himself by marrying the governess, nor our daughter the tutor, though she might marry the medical man.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That man and woman have an equality of duties and rights is accepted by woman even less than by man. Behind his destiny woman must annihilate herself, must be only his complement. A woman dedicates herself to the vocation of her husband; she fills up and performs the subordinate parts in it. But if she has any destiny, any vocation of her own, she must renounce it, in nine cases out of ten.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Moral activity? There is scarcely such a thing possible! Everything is sketchy. The world does nothing but sketch.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Religious men are and must be heretics now — for we must not pray, except in a "form" of words, made beforehand — or think of God but with a prearranged idea.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Men and women meet now to be idle. Is it extraordinary that they do not know each other, and that, in their mutual ignorance, they form no surer friendships? Did they meet to do something together, then indeed they might form some real tie. But, as it is, they are not there, it is only a mask which is there — a mouth-piece of ready-made sentences about the "topics of the day"; and then people rail against men for choosing a woman "for her face" — why, what else do they see?”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is very well to say "be prudent, be careful, try to know each other." But how are you to know each other? Unless a woman had lost all pride, how is it possible for her, under the eyes of all her family, to indulge in long exclusive conversations with a man? "Such a thing" must not take place till after her "engagement." And how is she to make an engagement, if "such a thing" has not taken place?”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A girl, if she has any pride, is so ashamed of having anything she wishes to say out of the hearing of her own family, she thinks it must be something so very wrong, that it is ten to one, if she have the opportunity of saying it, that she will not. And yet she is spending her life, perhaps, in dreaming of accidental means of unrestrained communion.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is thought pretty to say that "Women have no passion." If passion is excitement in the daily social intercourse with men, women think about marriage much more than men do; it is the only event of their lives. It ought to be a sacred event, but surely not the only event of a woman's life, as it is now. Many women spend their lives in asking men to marry them, in a refined way. Yet it is true that women are seldom in love. How can they be?”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It seems as if the female spirit of the world were mourning everlastingly over blessings, not lost, but which she has never had, and which, in her discouragement she feels that she never will have, they are so far off.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Jesus Christ raised women above the condition of mere slaves, mere ministers to the passions of the man, raised them by His sympathy, to be Ministers of God. He gave them moral activity. But the Age, the World, Humanity, must give them the means to exercise this moral activity, must give them intellectual cultivation, spheres of action.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nothing can well be imagined more painful than the present position of woman, unless, on the one hand, she renounces all outward activity and keeps herself within the magic sphere, the bubble of her dreams; or, on the other, surrendering all aspiration, she gives herself to her real life, soul and body. For those to whom it is possible, the latter is best; for out of activity may come thought, out of mere aspiration can come nothing.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The time is come when women must do something more than the "domestic hearth," which means nursing the infants, keeping a pretty house, having a good dinner and an entertaining party.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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. When we ask ourselves only what is right, or what is the will of God (the same question), then we may truly be said to live in His light.”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source