“Live life when you have it. Life is a splendid gift-there is nothing small about it.”

I think one’s feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results.

No woman has excited “passions” among women more than I have. Yet I leave no school behind me.

In a sick-room or a bed-room there should never be shutters shut.

Religion was important to me. My family and I were very religious. I acctualy believe the work I did was a calling from God himself.

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

Apprehension, uncertainty, waiting, expectation, fear of surprise, do a patient more harm than any exertion.

Nursing is a progressive art such that to stand still is to go backwards.

Never to allow a patient to be waked, intentionally or accidentally, is a sine qua non of all good nursing.

Never give nor take an excuse.

It is the unqualified result of all my experience with the sick that, second only to their need of fresh air, is their need of light; that, after a close room, what hurts them most is a dark room and that it is not only light but direct sunlight they want.

Let whoever is in charge keep this simple question in her head (not, how can I always do this right thing myself, but) how can I provide for this right thing to be always done?

The specific disease doctrine is the grand refuge of weak, uncultured, unstable minds, such as now rule in the medical profession. There are no specific diseases; there are specific disease conditions.

Our first journey is to find that special place for us.

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.

I have lived and slept in the same bed with English countesses and Prussian farm women… no woman has excited passions among women more than I have.

I never lose an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however small.

It is an in, a grave evil and a disturbance of the right order, for a larger and higher organisation, to arrogate to itself functions which can be performed efficiently by smaller and lower bodies.

The day you catch an idea you fall in love with, even a small one, is a beautiful day.

The smaller you strip things down, the more you depend on the songs and yourself, as opposed to arrangements.

Me personally, I come from very, very humble beginnings – little, small town in Alabama, you know, staying at my granddaddy house. We really didn’t have nothing.

I’d just like to say that I have a personal disgust for small dogs, like poodles. I have some serious physical problems with them. Everything about them means I must kill them. I must.

A lot of people have a misconception of what the ghetto is all about. You know, it’s only a small percentage of the people that are bad. Everybody else is good.

If your mother does not love you well or is no longer here to love you well, may you feel worthy enough to open to the thousand tiny ways the spirit of mother longs to love you today.

Small is how blessings, healing, progress and increase occur.