Florence Nightingale Quotes

“In a letter, she wrote that nursing would need to remain a profession of quiet and unthanked service, not an endeavor where employees would expect accolades or public recognition.”
― Lynn M. Hamilton, Florence Nightingale: A Life Inspired

“One soldier wrote home saying that he and his peers sought to kiss her shadow.”
― Lynn M. Hamilton, Florence Nightingale: A Life Inspired

“The Crimean War earned the distinction of being the first time in British history that a medical corps was accused of negligence.”
― Lynn M. Hamilton, Florence Nightingale: A Life Inspired

“Florence Nightingale’s greatest achievement was her ability to link infection to unclean environs despite the absence of the germ theory. Nightingale’s patients were also around a hundred years too early to benefit from the advent of antibiotics.”
― Lynn M. Hamilton, Florence Nightingale: A Life Inspired

“The Harley Street clientele was a collection of sad women, indeed. They were governesses who were either very sick or out of work. Most of them were unwanted by their families. It is worth noting that, in Victorian England, governesses were almost invariably well-born young ladies whose families had fallen on hard times. They worked long hours for wealthy families, often put up with abusive children, and made a pittance. It was rare for a governess to save any significant amount of money. The Harley Street home was a way station for some and an end-of-life hospice for others.”
― Lynn M. Hamilton, Florence Nightingale: A Life Inspired

“Nightingale had started to believe that, to be successful, nursing would need to be separate from the church, even though she believed that nursing was a spiritual calling.”
― Lynn M. Hamilton, Florence Nightingale: A Life Inspired

“When she was twenty-four, Florence indicated her interest in the nursing profession, but her parents were strongly opposed. It needs to be noted that, in the nineteenth century, nurses did not enjoy the reputation that they enjoy today. In fact, the reputation they enjoy today is largely due to the reforms brought about by Florence Nightingale. Nineteenth-century nurses fell into two categories: There were nursing nuns, who achieved a modicum of the respect due to their hard work and lives of strict sacrifice. Lay nurses, however, were another story. They were widely assumed to be alcoholics and victims, if not willing participants, of sexual harassment from patients and other medical professionals. Outside the church, nursing was the last refuge of a woman who could find no other way to earn her living. It was not, in brief, the career path that a young lady brought up in a wealthy Victorian home would consider—unless that young lady were Florence Nightingale.”
― Lynn M. Hamilton, Florence Nightingale: A Life Inspired

“England of 1840 expected its young, affluent women to be literate and culturally astute, but it provided no real occupation for women with energy and vision. Fields of endeavor that were open to energetic, ambitious men—the military, finance, law, medicine, manufacture—were effectively closed to women.”
― Lynn M. Hamilton, Florence Nightingale: A Life Inspired

“But Florence Nightingale was not born into such a family. She was, instead, born to a wealthy English couple who could afford a honeymoon that took several years and spanned the European continent. The honeymoon of William Edward and Frances Nightingale went on for so long that their two daughters were both born before the couple returned to their home in England. Florence was named after the Italian city where she was born. Her sister, Frances Parthenope,was similarly named in honor of her parents’ travels: Parthenopolis is an ancient Greek settlement in Naples.”
― Lynn M. Hamilton, Florence Nightingale: A Life Inspired

“One hundred and fifty years ago, the respect we now have for nurses and the intense training that nurses must undergo was nothing but a seed in Florence Nightingale’s imagination. If we believe that nurses are some of the most respectable and hardworking people in our community, we owe that belief to Florence Nightingale.”
― Lynn M. Hamilton, Florence Nightingale: A Life Inspired