Florence Nightingale quotes about doing the right thing

Here are 10 more real quotes from Florence Nightingale:

1. “Let us never consider ourselves finished nurses… we must be learning all of our lives.”

— Florence Nightingale, from her letters and writings

2. “Live life when you have it. Life is a splendid gift—there is nothing small about it.”

— Florence Nightingale, from her personal writings

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

— Florence Nightingale, quoted in Florence Nightingale: A Biography by Cecil Woodham-Smith

4. “How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.”

— Florence Nightingale, from her letters

5. “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, from her letters

6. “Rather, ten times, die in the surf, heralding the way to a new world, than stand idly on the shore.”

— *Florence Nightingale, quoted in Florence Nightingale to Her Nurses: A Selection from Miss Nightingale’s Addresses to Probationers and Nurses of the Nightingale School at St. Thomas’s Hospital

7. “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, from Notes on Nursing: What It Is and What It Is Not

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

— Florence Nightingale, from her letters

9. “To be ‘in charge’ is certainly not only to carry out the proper measures yourself but to see that everyone else does so too.”

— *Florence Nightingale, from Notes on Nursing: What It Is and What It Is Not

10. “If a nurse declines to do these kinds of things for her patient, ‘because it is not her business,’ I should say that nursing was not her calling.”

— *Florence Nightingale, from Notes on Nursing: What It Is and What It Is Not