Nursing is a progressive art such that to stand still is to go backwards.
The most important practical lesson that can be given to nurses is to teach them what to observe.
How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.
So 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.
I think one’s feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results.
Unless we are making progress in our nursing every year, every month, every week, take my word for it we are going back.
The very first requirement in a hospital is that it should do the sick no harm.
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.
Apprehension, uncertainty, waiting, expectation, fear of surprise, do a patient more harm than any exertion.
I am certainly convinced that the greatest heroes are those who do their duty in the daily grind of domestic affairs whilst the world whirls as a maddening dreidel.
People talk about imitating Christ, and imitate Him in the little trifling formal things, such as washing the feet, saying His prayer, and so on; but if anyone attempts the real imitation of Him, there are no bounds to the outcry with which the presumption of that person is condemned.
A human being does not cease to exist at death. It is change, not destruction, which takes place.
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.