Go into a room where the shutters are always shut (in a sick-room or a bed-room there should never be shutters shut), and though the room be uninhabited-though the air has never been polluted by the breathing of human beings, you will observe a close, musty smell of corrupt air-of air unpurified by the effect of the sun's rays.
Florence NightingaleNursing 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.
Florence NightingaleRather, ten times, die in the surf, heralding the way to a new world, than stand idly on the shore.
Florence NightingaleWe know nothing of the principle of health, the positive of which pathology is the negative, except from observation and experience. Nothing but observation and experience will teach us the ways to maintain or to bring back the state of health. It is often thought that medicine is the curative process. It is no such thing; medicine is the surgery of functions as surgery proper is that of limbs and organs.
Florence Nightingale