“A human being does not cease to exist at death. It is change, not destruction, which takes place.”

I attribute my success to this – I never gave or took any excuse.

Marriage is the only chance (and it is but a chance) offered to women for escape from this death and how eagerly and how ignorantly it is embraced.

To understand God’s thoughts, one must study statistics, for these are the measure of His purpose.

For what is Mysticism? It is not the attempt to draw near to God, not by rites or ceremonies, but by inward disposition? Is it not merely a hard word for ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is within’? Heaven is neither a place nor a time.

Volumes are now written and spoken upon the effect of the mind upon the body. Much of it is true. But I wish a little more was thought of the effect of the body on the mind.

The most important practical lesson than can be given to nurses is to teach them what to observe.

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.

The world is put back by the death of every one who has to sacrifice the development of his or her peculiar gifts to conventionality.

There is a physical, not moral, impossibility of supplying the wants of the intellect in the state of civilisation at which we have arrived.

Women have no sympathy and my experience of women is almost as large as Europe.

Unnecessary noise is the most cruel abuse of care which can be inflicted on either the sick or the well.

Let us never consider ourselves finished nurses, we must be learning all of our lives.

The very first requirement in a hospital is that it should do the sick no harm.

I 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.

The night is given to us to take breath, to pray, to drink deep at the fountain of power.

I can expect no sympathy or help from my family.

The combination of economic and political power in the same hands is a sure recipe for tyranny.

I have a thing where if I’m not in control, I feel the whole world is about to collapse.

The surest source of destruction to men is to obey themselves.

The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.

Wonder and humility are wholesome emotions and they do not exist side by side with a lust for destruction.

Our attitude towards plants is a singularly narrow one. If we see any immediate utility in a plant we foster it. If for any reason we find its presence undesirable or merely a matter of indifference, we may condemn it to destruction forthwith.

The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.

The only alternative to coexistence is codestruction.