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. ”

I have learned to know God. I have recast my social belief... All my admirers are married; most of my friends are dead; and I stand with all the world before me, where to choose a path to make in it. ”

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. ”

Why do people sit up so late, or, more rarely, get up so early? Not because the day is not long enough, but because they have no time in the day to themselves. ”

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. ”

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

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. ”