Quotes from Florence Nightingale

God spoke to me and called me to His Service. What form this service was to take the voice did not say.

Apprehension, uncertainty, waiting, expectation, fear of surprise, do a patient more harm than any exertion.

Live life when you have it. Life is a splendid gift-there is nothing small about it.

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.

To be a fellow worker with God is the highest aspiration of which we can conceive man capable.

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

I must strive to see only God in my friends, and God in my cats.

The most important pratical lesson that can be given to nurses is to teach them what to observe-how to observe-what symptoms indicate improvement-what the reverse-which are of importance-which are of none-which are the evidence of neglect-and of what kind of neglect.

What cruel mistakes are sometimes made by benevolent men and women in matters of business about which they know nothing and think they know a great deal.

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.

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.

Live your life while you have it. Life is a splendid gift. There is nothing small in it. Far the greatest things grow by God's law out of the smallest. But to live your life, you must discipline it.