Looking for a little inspiration? Listed below are 10 quotes about nurses and nursing to leave you feeling revitalized.
1. "Rejoice in your work; never lose sight of the nursing leader you are now and the nursing leader you will become."
— Sue Fitzsimons, PhD, RN, senior vice president of patient services and CNO at Yale-New Haven (Conn.) Hospital during the Yale School of Nursing 2013 commencement address
2. "The doctors may be mapping out the war games, but it is the nurses who make the conflict bearable.
—Jodi Picoult, author, taken from My Sister's Keeper
3. "Whether a person is a male or female, a nurse is a nurse." – Gary Veale, RN
4. "Nurses have new and expanding roles. They are case managers, helping patients navigate the maze of healthcare choices and develop plans of care. They are patient educators who focus on preventative care in a multitude of settings outside hospitals. And they are leaders, always identifying ways for their practice to improve. Because nurses have the most direct patient care, they have much influence on serious treatment decisions. It is a very high stakes job. Everyone wants the best nurse for the job, and that equates to the best educated nurse."
— Judy Evans, RN, associate professor of nursing at Colorado Mountain College, quoted in The Glenwood Springs Post Independent
5. "As a nurse, we have the opportunity to heal the heart, mind, soul and body of our patients, their families and ourselves. They may forget your name, but they will never forget how you made them feel."
— Maya Angelou, author, poet and civil rights activist
6. "We often think of nursing as giving meds on time, checking an X-ray to see if the doctor needs to be called, or taking an admission at 2:00 a.m. with a smile on our faces. Too often, we forget all the other things that make our job what it truly is — caring and having a desire to make a difference."
— Erin Pettengill, RN, missionary nurse, quoted in RN Modern Medicine
7. "When a person decides to become a nurse, they make the most important decision of their lives. They choose to dedicate themselves to the care of others."
— Margaret Harvey, PhD, RN, president of the Indianapolis Campus of the Chamberlain College of Nursing
8. "Nurses are not just doers. Our work is supported by evidence and guided by theory. We integrate evidence and theory with our knowledge of patients and make important decisions with and for patients and families at the point of care. Research and practice are not separate but integrated. Nursing is a practice discipline with our own theories and research base that we both generate, use, and disseminate to others."
— Antonia Villarruel, PhD, RN, professor and Margaret Bond Simon Dean of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania, quoted in Penn Current
9. "To do what nobody else will do, a way that nobody else can do, in spite of all we go through; that is to be a nurse."
— Rawsi Williams, RN, attorney
10. "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."
— Florence Nightingale, first published as a eulogy to an unnamed nurse in Good Words