"Florence Nightingale", Order of Merit (Commonwealth)/OM, Royal Red Cross/RRC (; 12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was a celebrated English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing. She came to prominence while serving as a manager of nurses trained by her during the Crimean War, where she organised the tending to wounded soldiers. She gave nursing a highly favourable reputation and became an icon of Victorian culture, especially in the persona of "The Lady with the Lamp" making rounds of wounded soldiers at night.

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You ask me why I do not write something....I think one's feelings waste themselves in words, they ought all to be distilled into actions and into actions which bring results.

Hospitals are only an intermediate stage of civilization.

Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better.

It may seem a strange principle to enunciate as the very first requirement in a hospital that it should do the sick no harm.

There is no part of my life, upon which I can look back without pain.

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

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

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

No man, not even a doctor, ever gives any other definition of what a nurse should be than this - 'devoted and obedient'. This definition would do just as well for a porter. It might even do for a horse. It would not do for a policeman.

How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.