Nursing Quotes

“Honor to the soldier and sailor everywhere, who bravely bears his country's cause. Honor, also, to the citizen who cares for his brother in the field and serves, as he best can, the same cause.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“I have always liked the phrase 'nursing a grudge' because many people are tender of their resentments as of the thing nearest their hearts.”
― Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

“I took her into bed with me and propped myself up with pillows against the headboard to let her nurse. As she nursed and the milk came, she began a little low contented sort of singing. I would feel milk and love flowing from me to her as once it had flowed to me. It emptied me. As the baby fed, I seemed slowly to grow empty of myself, as if in the presence of that long flow of love even grief could not stand.”
― Wendell Berry, Hannah Coulter

“I'm just a girl in a nurse's uniform, but that doesn't mean I know how to save these men, and they- they are men in uniforms, but that doesn't mean they know how to die.”
― Marcus Sedgwick, The Foreshadowing

“You must never so much think as whether you like it or not, whether it is bearable or not; you must never think of anything except the need, and how to meet it.”
― Clara Barton

“The hospital will never be healthy for patients if it's not a healthy environment for nurses, where their voices are heard and where they can care for their patients and use the full extent of their knowledge, abilities, and skills. After all, hospitals today have become one big intensive care unit: all patients need intensive caring.”
― Tilda Shalof

“Nursing is a kind of mania; a fever in the blood; an incurable disease which, once contracted, cannot be got out of the system. If it was not like that, there would be no hospital nurses, for compared dispassionately with other professions, the hours are long, the work hard, and the pay inadequate to the amount of concentrated energy required.
A nurse, however, does not view her profession dispassionately. It is too much a part of her.”
― Monica Dickens

“...For having a baby's sweet face so close to your own, for so long a time as it takes to nurse 'em, is a great tonic for a sad soul.”
― Erica Eisdorfer, The Wet Nurse's Tale

“Four impressionable years spent in a number of very different hospitals convinced me once for all that nursing, if it is to be done efficiently, requires, more than any other occupation, abundant leisure in colorful surroundings, sufficient money to spend on amusements, agreeable food to re-establish the energy expended, and the removal of anxiety about illness and old age; yet of all skilled professions, it is still the least vitalised by these advantages, still the most oppressed by unnecessary worries, cruelties, hardships and regulations.”
― Vera Brittain, Testament of Youth

“COVID-19 has turned nursing into a very risky occupation.”
― Steven Magee

“Jump there with me - on top of the stretcher, the man between your legs, your hands pumping his heart. Do not fear the clatter of wheels, the bumps and slopes in corridors. It is only turbulence.”
― Romalyn Ante, Antiemetic for Homesickness

“Find current LPN programs in Arkansas. See our list of accredited Arkansas LPN schools that offer LPN training classes.”
― Nursing Staff of the Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital at Stan

“Dig deep, past the pain of knowing you failed or that you could have done things differently and past the temptation to self-loathe. Live in the pain of the mistake, notice your ego's attempt to protect you by justifying your mistake or blaming another for their part in a situation. We must go deeper into ourselves, to tap into the wisdom that resides underneath our mistakes.”
― Jenn Bruer, Helping Effortlessly: A Book of Inspiration and Healing

“What angels are to the sad, nurses are to the sick.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“The realities of nursing are that they work in environments which are typically filled with toxic air, toxic light, high levels of radiation, and potentially deadly infectious agents.”
― Steven Magee

“I will be the first one to greet you, Welcome back.
Even if I know you’d rather go.”
― Romalyn Ante

“Many of us in healthcare entered the profession because we wanted to help, heal, and serve. At our core, we have compassion, empathy, and a drive to help people live their best lives. Recognizing and implementing actions to prevent patient and employee harm has the greatest potential effect on the quality of care delivered in our health care system, just as preventative care and wellness efforts slow or stop the progression of disease.”
― Heidi Raines, Shared Voices: A Framework for Patient and Employee Safety in Healthcare

“At the very least, to set our healthcare workers, patients, and patient caregivers up for success, we must modernize the systems that guide their work and enable their voices to be heard—especially when they see opportunities to prevent harm and improve care environments.”
― Heidi Raines, Shared Voices: A Framework for Patient and Employee Safety in Healthcare

“We get used to seeing the patients ill; even used to them dying. When they do we get upset if we know them. We can't get upset for those we don't know. We have to forget them. We'd all have nervous breakdowns if we didn't.”
― Lucilla Andrews, My Friend the Professor

“Bad backs are an occupational disease of nursing.”
― Steven Magee

“COVID-19 has swept through 75% of nursing homes in Stockholm, Sweden.”
― Steven Magee

“Why is it that the U.S. government doesn't reward public servants by allowing them to live tax-free?”
― James Thomas Kesterson Jr

“Effective communication is the backbone for productivity in all settings...especially in healthcare. Lives depend on this simple act”
― Nonye Tochi Aghanya, Tips for Effective Communication: A vital tool for Trust Development in Healthcare

“My hope is that by sharing my story, along with the continuing adventure to gain some sense of equilibrium, those of you who have also survived violence won’t feel quite so alone on your journey. A community of survivors is a brave place to start the healing process, and sadly, for many, that community is difficult, if not impossible, to find.”
― June Zanes Garen, Hey! I Could Use a Little Help Here! My Story of Healthcare Workplace Violence

“Milk is food for the beginning eater. A gulpable essence distilled by the mother from her own more variable and challenging diet.

(from "On Food and Cooking")”
― Howard McGee

“Throughout my nursing career, I noticed that during times of great need, suffering, and even death; the most powerful medication I ever administered was a heartfelt dose of love and compassion.”
― Jeff Christian

“Oh well, at least I'll get a 90 minute break until the next feed. That's when my lactation consultant delivered the real tit-punch. The every-90-minute stopwatch does not start from the end of one feeding. It starts from: the beginning. I've never been great at math but if you're supposed to feed a baby every 90 minutes from the moment they start eating, and the feeding takes 90 minutes, then you are feeding a baby every minute of every hour of every 24 hour day. If I could've fainted when I heard this news I would have, but since I was already dead, I couldn't. I was in a very real sense being eaten alive.”
― Jessi Klein, I'll Show Myself Out: Essays on Midlife and Motherhood

“...she saw that, as a patient drew near to the terminal stage of an illness, far from there being 'nothing more we can do', there was a great deal more to be done: bring comfort in relaxed surroundings, look after the physical, emotional and spiritual well-being of the patient, give medical care if possible, but if not, meticulous nursing in the last stages of life.”
― Jennifer Worth, In the Midst of Life

“My mum, her sister and my late grandmother were all nurses. Until fairly recently, nursing was one of the few occupations available to bright Australian women of modest means. Conditioned by years of night duty, sleep - and lack of sleep - was a constant topic of family conversation.”
― Fleur Anderson, On Sleep

“Would you like some laudanum?” she said directly.

“No,” he answered through clenched teeth.

“You make me feel very guilty for getting Mrs. Dodge to stop giving it to you,” Arabella confessed.

“I’ve seen what can happen to a man who uses such things too freely,” John said resolutely. “There was a man in our town–” he broke off, stifling a groan. “It doesn’t matter - I don’t want the stuff, that’s all.”
― Sarah Brazytis, The Letter