100 Inspiring Nurse Quotes For These Difficult Times

270109
inspirational nursing quotes

Words are very powerful. They can either cheer you up or tear you down and make you feel like crap. This is why it’s best to choose the words you let into your heart and mind with care, and trash everything else. After all, we are all given a choice every day: to wallow in self-pity or to choose happiness.

Nurses are no exception. One’s success in the nursing profession is not determined by how much theoretical knowledge a nurse possesses, but how resilient we are in the face of adversity.

We are trained to care for strangers. However, there are times when our character is tested and we feel as though every pinch of inspiration to do our job well has left us. This is when inspirational quotes come into the picture.

Inspiring quotes have the power to boost you up even if they were uttered by someone long dead or forgotten into obscurity so long as they find a resonance within you. These quotes are extremely helpful especially during trying times at work, like when we’re dealing with deaths or feeling burnt out.

These inspiring quotes are just waiting to get found by you.

Not all angels have wings … some have scrubs.

nursing quotes angels with scrubs

Be the nurse you would want as a patient.

nursing quotes be the nurse

Do small things with great love.

nursing quotes do small things with great love

When someone is going through a storm, your silent presence is more powerful than a million empty words.

nursing quotes silent presence more powerful than empty words

When you are a nurse, you know that everyday you will touch a life or a life will touch yours.

nursing quotes life will touch yours

A nurse dispense comfort, compassion, and caring without even a prescription. – Val Saintsbury

nursing quotes dispenses comfort compassion and caring

A nurse is compassion in scrubs. – Lexie Saige

nursing quotes compassion in scrubs

I’ve never really cared for what an unsung hero is until a nurse took care of me.

nursing quotes unsung hero nurse

Being a nurse means to hold all your own tears and start drawing smiles on people’s faces. – Dana Basem

nursing quotes drawing smiles on peoples faces

Remember: nurses are like icebergs. At any one time, you are only seeing what they are actually doing. – Ian Miller

nursing quotes nurses are like icebergs

Nurses: one of the few blessings of being ill. – Sara Moss-Wolfe

nursing quotes few blessing of being ill

You treat a disease: you win, you lose. You treat a person, I guarantee you win – no matter the outcome. – Robin Williams in Patch Adams

nursing patch adam quotes

To be a nurse means to be strong but tender, brave but kind. That’s a real grit in character we don’t come across every day.

nursing real grit in character quotes

Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. – Mother Teresa

nursing mother teresa quotes

When you feel like quitting, remember why you started.

instagram captions for nurses about quitting

It’s a beautiful thing when a career and a passion come together.

nursing career and passion come together quotes

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. – Mahatma Gandhi

instagram captions for nurses mahatma gandhi

The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away. – William Shakespeare

nursing purpose of life quotes

May your scrubs be comfy, your coffee be strong, and your Monday be short.

nursing coffee be strong quotes

It is not how much you do, but how much love you put in the doing. – Mother Teresa

nursing how much love you put quotes

Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do. – Benjamin Spock

nursing trust yourself quotes

Being a nurse is weird: I can keep a poker face through trauma, but have a mental breakdown over losing my favorite pen.

nursing being a nurse is weird quotes

Nursing is not for the empty of heart…nor the faint of heart.

instagram captions for nurses heart

A caress, a smile, is full of meaning for one who is sick. It is a simple gesture, but encouraging, he or she feels accompanied, feels closer to being healed, feels like a person, not a number. – Pope Francis

nursing pope francis quotes

Many things aren’t equal but everyone gets the same 24 hours, 7 days a week. We make time for what we truly want.

nursing make time quotes

Save one life, you’re a hero. Save 100 lives, you’re a nurse.

nursing hero nurse quotes

A nurse is not what you do. It is what you are… I am a nurse. It’s not what I do, it’s what I AM.

nursing nurse is what i am quotes

Constant attention by a good nurse may be just as important as a major operation by a surgeon. – Dag Hammarskjold

nursing dag hammarskjold quotes

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest accomplishment or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. – Leo Buscaglia

nursing leo buscaglia quotes

CARING is the essence of NURSING. – Jean Watson

nursing jean watson quotes

Bound by paperwork, short on hands, sleep, and energy… nurses are rarely short on caring. – Sharon Hudacek

nursing sharon hudacek quotes

Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires, a touch that never hurts. – Charles Dickens

nursing charles dickens quotes

Be strong when you are weak. Be brave when you are scared. Be humble when you are victorious. Be badass everyday.

nursing be badass everyday quotes

A nurse is one who opens the eyes of a newborn & gently closes the eyes of a dying man. It is indeed a high blessing to be the first and last to witness the beginning and end of life.

nursing beginning and end of life witness quotes

Never give up on anybody. Miracles happen everyday. – H. Jackson Brown Jr.

nursing miracles happen quotes

Kind words can be short and easy to speak but their echoes are truly endless. – Mother Teresa

nursing kind words quotes

Treat the patient as a whole, not just the hole in the patient.

nursing treat the patient whole quotes

Value what you do and add value by what you do.

nursing value quotes

Nurses are a unique kind. They have this insatiable need to care for others, which is both their greatest strength and fatal flaw. – Dr. Jean Watson, RN, Doctor, Author and Professor

nursing dr jean watson quotes

Forgive yourself, you are not perfect. Show yourself grace; you are still learning. Show yourself patience; you are on a journey.

nursing forgive yourself quotes

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

instagram captions for nurses ralph waldo emerson

Your profession is not what brings home your paycheck. Your profession is what you were put on Earth to do with such passion and such intensity that it becomes spiritual in calling. – Vincent Van Gogh

instagram captions for nurses vincent can gogh

They may FORGET your name, but they will NEVER FORGET how you made them feel. – Maya Angelou

nursing maya angelou quotes

The character of the nurses is as important as the knowledge she possesses. – Carolyn Javis

nursing carolyn javis quotes

Sometimes I inspire my patients; more often they inspire me.

nursing inspiration quotes

Nurses are the heart of healthcare. – Donna Wilk Cardill

nursing heart if healthcare quotes

Nurses are the hospitality of the hospital.

nursing hospitality of the hospital quotes

To do what nobody else will do, a way that nobody else can do in spite of all we go through; that is to be a NURSE. – Rawsi Williams

nursing that is to be a nurse quotes

A nurse will always give us hope, an Angel with a stethoscope. – Terri Guillemets

nursing angel with a stethoscope quotes

The bamboo that bends is stronger than the oak that resists. – Japanese Proverb

nursing bamboo bend stronger quotesTo care and give comfort to others when you know you’re beaten yourself makes you a force to be reckoned with. Don’t give up just yet.

nursing care and give comfort quotes

Every nurse was drawn to nursing because of a desire to care, to serve, or to help. – Christina Feist-Heilmeier, RN

Nurses are there when the last breath is taken, and nurses are there when the first breath is taken. Although it is more enjoyable to celebrate the birth, it is just as important to comfort in death. – Christine Belle

America’s nurses are the beating heart of our medical system. – Barack Obama

Hardships often prepare people for an extraordinary destiny. – C.S. Lewis

While that’s correct… it’s not the most correct. This is nursing school.

Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow. – Anthony J. D’Angelo

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

Panic plays no part in the training of a nurse. – Elizabeth Kenny

Let us never consider ourselves finished, nurses. We must be learning all of our lives. – Florence Nightingale

Nurse: just another word to describe a person strong enough to tolerate anything and soft enough to understand anyone.

Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and, above all, confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this something, at whatever cost, must be attained. – Marie Curie

Happiness … consists of giving, and in serving others. – Henry Drummond

Just so you know, doctors are here to diagnose, not heal. We heal. – Edie Falco in Nurse Jackie

The more you care, the stronger you can be.

Little people are indifferent. Superior people are caring. – Maxime Lagacé

Doctors are sort of scary. Nurses, on the other hand, with their reassuring smile, are always on our side.

When I think about all the patients and their loved ones I have worked with over the years, I know most of them don’t remember me, nor I them. But I do know that I gave a little piece of myself to each of them, and they to me, and those threads make up the tapestry that is my career in nursing. – Donna Wilk Cardillo

There no longer has to be a difference between who you are and what you do. – Gary Vaynerchuk

The nurse is temporarily the consciousness of the unconscious, the love of life of the suicidal, the leg of the amputee, the eyes of the newly blind, a means of locomotion for the newborn , knowledge and confidence for the young mother, a voice for those too weak to speak, and so on. – Virginia Henderson

Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion. – Muhammad Ali

Where the needs of the world and your talents cross, there lies your vocation. – Aristotle

Knowing is not enough, we must APPLY. Willing is not enough, we must DO. – Bruce Lee

Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts. – Winston Churchill

There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is. – Albert Einstein

A problem is a chance for you to do your best. – Duke Ellington

God appoints our graces to be NURSES to other men’s weaknesses. – Henry Ward Beecher

Knowing is better than wondering, waking is better than sleeping, and even the biggest failure, even the worse, beats the hell out of never trying. – Meredith Grey, Grey’s Anatomy

Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned or worn. It is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and attitude. – Denis Waitley

Nothing is impossible. The word itself says “I’m possible”! – Audrey Hepburn

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is great work. The only way to do great work is to love what you do. – Steve Jobs

Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestation of strength and resolution. – Kahlil Gibran

Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway. – Earl Nightingale

The difference between who you are and who you want to be is what you do.

Nurses encompasses an art, a humanistic orientation, a feeling for the value of the individual, and an intuitive sense of ethics, and of the appropriateness of action taken. –Myrtle Aydelotte

To accomplish great things, you must not only act but also dream, not only plan but also believe. – Anatole France

If you can’t figure out your purpose, figure out your passion. For passion will lead you right into your purpose. – Bishop T.D Jakes

BE KIND for everyone you meet is fighting a BATTLE. – Plato

Every nurse is an angel with a key for healthy community! All in caring for patients is part of nursing soul! – Alexsandar Radunovic

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. – Dr. Seuss

Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better. Don’t wish for fewer problems, wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenges, wish for more wisdom. – Earl Shoaf

Fill your mind with truth. Fill your heart with love. Fill your life with service.

Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. – Mark Twain

Work for a cause, not for applause. Live life to express, not to impress. Don’t strive to make your presence noticed, just make your presence felt.

The trained nurse has become one of the great blessings of humanity, taking a place beside the physician and the priest. – William Osler

Nursing is one of the Fine Arts: I had almost said he finest of Fine Arts. – Florence Nightingale

Nurses don’t wait until October to celebrate “Make a Difference Day”. They make a difference everyday!

I’m not telling you it’s going to be easy, I am telling you it’s going to be worth it. – Art Williams

Our job as nurses is to cushion the sorrow and celebrate the job, everyday, while we are “just doing our jobs”. – Christine Belle

SHARE