Florence Nightingale

The most important thing in life is to have a purpose.

I am a soldier, and I have a great many battles to fight.

The world is a place of infinite possibilities, if only we have the courage to seize them.

I have no fear of death. I have a great fear of not doing my duty.

The world is a great school, and we are all its pupils.

I am a woman of action, not of words.

The very best thing in life is to have a clear purpose.

I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse.

Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better.

The amount of relief and comfort experienced by the sick after the skin has been carefully washed and dried, is one of the commonest observations made at a sick bed.

Hospitals are only an intermediate stage of civilization, never intended, at all events, to take in the whole sick population.

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.

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.

Why have women passion, intellect, moral activity—these three—and a place in society where no one of the three can be exercised?

Live your life while you have it. Life is a splendid gift. There is nothing small in it.

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.

I am of the opinion that there are very few things which an intelligent mind may not make more intelligible to another.

I am not a bit afraid of my own death, but I am very much afraid of my patients' deaths.

The world is put back by every mistake and advanced by every truth.

The amount of good which a man can do to mankind can never be measured by the amount of money he gives.