I founded the American Red Cross.

I was only one woman alone, and had no power to move to action full-fed, sleek- coated, ease-loving, pleasure-seeking, well-paid,and well-placed countrymen in this war- trampled, dead, old land, each one afraid that he should be called upon to do something.

People should not say that this or that is not worth learning, giving as their reason that it will not be put to use. They can no more know what information they will need in the future than they will know the weather two hundred years from today.

Let me go, let me go.

I have never worked for fame or praise, and shall not feel their loss as I otherwise would. I have never for a moment lost sight of the humble life I was born to, its small environments, and the consequently little right I had to expect much of myself, and shall have the less to censure, or upbraid myself with for the failures I must see myself make.

Long ago I added to the true old adage of "What is everybody's business is nobody's business," another clause which, I think, morethan any other principle has served to influence my actions in life. That is, What is nobody's business is my business.

The surest test of discipline is its absence.