Wise and humane management of the patient is the best safeguard against infection.
Florence NightingaleRead
Nursing is an art: and if it is to be made an art, it requires an exclusive devotion as hard a preparation as any painter's or sculptor's work; for what is the having to do with dead canvas or dead marble, compared with having to do with the living body, the temple of God's spirit? It is one of the Fine Arts: I had almost said, the finest of Fine Arts.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Nursing is a skilled profession that, like any art, requires deep dedication and preparation to care for the living.
Florence Nightingale emphasizes that nursing should be recognized not just as a duty, but as a fine art that demands the same level of dedication and skill as painting or sculpture. Working with the human body—the living embodiment of spirit—is a profound responsibility, highlighting the importance and complexity of nursing as a profession essential to humanity.
Themes
NursingArtDedicationCareProfession
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of nursing in healthcare, one could quote Nightingale to emphasize its artistic nature.
More from Florence Nightingale
All quotes →For us who Nurse, our Nursing is a thing, which, unless in it we are making progress every year, every month, every week, take my word for it we are going back. The more experience we gain, the more progress we can make.
Florence NightingaleRead
Everything you do in a patient's room, after he is 'put up' for the night, increases tenfold the risk of his having a bad night. But, if you rouse him up after he has fallen asleep, you do not risk - you secure him a bad night.
Florence NightingaleRead
If I could give you information of my life it would be to show how a woman of very ordinary ability has been led by God in strange and unaccustomed paths to do in His service what He has done in her. And if I could tell you all, you would see how God has done all, and I nothing. I have worked hard, very hard, that is all; and I have never refused God anything.
Florence NightingaleRead
The true foundation of theology is to ascertain the character of God. It is by the aid of Statistics that law in the social sphere can be ascertained and codified, and certain aspects of the character of God thereby revealed. The study of statistics is thus a religious service.
Florence NightingaleRead
I am of certain 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.
Florence NightingaleRead
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