Quotes by Nurses - Page 2

I keep turning over new leaves, and spoiling them, as I used to spoil my copybooks; and I make so many beginnings there never will be an end. (Jo March)
Louisa May Alcott
...freedom being the sauce best beloved by the boyish soul.
Louisa May Alcott
I'm tired of praise; and love is very sweet, when it is simple and sincere like this.
Louisa May Alcott
And mother-like, Mrs. Jo forgot the threatened chastisement in tender lamentations over the happy scapegrace…
Louisa May Alcott
Mothers can forgive anything! Tell me all, and be sure that I will never let you go, though the whole world should turn from you.
Louisa May Alcott
The clocks were striking midnight and the rooms were very still as a figure glided quietly from bed to bed, smoothing a coverlid here, settling a pillow there, and pausing to look long and tenderly at each unconscious face, to kiss each with lips that mutely blessed, and to pray the fervent prayers which only mothers utter.
Louisa May Alcott
Dan clung to her in speechless gratitude, feeling the blessedness of mother love, — that divine gift which comforts, purifies, and strengthens all who seek it.
Louisa May Alcott
It’s bad enough to love someone who don’t love you, but to have them told of it is perfectly awful. It makes me wild just to think of it. Ah, Fan, I’m getting so ill tempered and envious and wicked, I don’t know what will happen to me. - Polly
Louisa May Alcott
Who are your heroes?" asked Jo."Grandfather and Napoleon.
Louisa May Alcott
I am of certain convinced that the greatest heroes are those who do their duty in the daily grind of domestic affairs whilst the world whirls as a maddening dreidel.
Florence Nightingale
Quickly I find another surprise. The boys are wilder writers — less careful of convention, more willing to leap into the new. I start watching the dozens of vaguely familiar girls, who seem to have shaved off all distinguishing characteristics. They are so careful. Careful about their appearance, what they say and how they say it, how they sit, what they write. Even in the five-minute free writes, they are less willing to go out from where they are — to go out there, where you have to go, to write. They are reluctant to show me rough work, imperfect work, anything I might criticize; they are very careful to write down my instructions word by word.They’re all trying themselves on day by day, hour by hour, I know — already making choices that will last too unfairly long. I’m surprised to find, after a few days, how invigorating it all is. I pace and plead for reaction, for ideas, for words, and gradually we all relax a little and we make progress. The boys crouch in their too-small desks, giant feet sticking out, and the girls perch on the edge, alert like little groundhogs listening for the patter of coyote feet. I begin to like them a lot.Then the outlines come in. I am startled at the preoccupation with romance and family in many of these imaginary futures. But the distinction between boys and girls is perfectly, painfully stereotypical. The boys also imagine adventure, crime, inventions, drama. One expects war with China, several get rich and lose it all, one invents a time warp, another resurrects Jesus, another is shot by a robber. Their outlines are heavy on action, light on response. A freshman: “I grow populerity and for the rest of my life I’m a million air.” [sic] A sophomore boy in his middle age: “Amazingly, my first attempt at movie-making won all the year’s Oscars. So did the next two. And my band was a HUGE success. It only followed that I run the country.”Among the girls, in all the dozens and dozens of girls, the preoccupation with marriage and children is almost everything. They are entirely reaction, marked by caution. One after the other writes of falling in love, getting married, having children and giving up — giving up careers, travel, college, sports, private hopes, to save the marriage, take care of the children. The outlines seem to describe with remarkable precision the quietly desperate and disappointed lives many women live today.
Sallie Tisdale
Everything can't be explained by some general biological phrase.
Nella Larsen
Prosperity suits some people, and they blossom best in a glow of sunshine; others need the shade, and are the sweeter for a touch of frost.
Louisa May Alcott
Something was nagging at me that I was trying to resist. Was it then or was it later that the thought came to me: if God really does exist, and is not just a myth, it must have a consequence for the whole of life. It was not a comfortable thought.
Jennifer Worth
Jo's face was a study next day, for the secret rather weighed upon her, and she found it hard not to look mysterious and important. Meg observed it, but did not troubled herself to make inquiries, for she had learned that the best way to manage Jo was by the law of contraries, so she felt sure of being told everything if she did not ask.
Louisa May Alcott
Failing to listen to the woman is one of the biggest mistakes a practitioner can make.
Helen Varney
For where else can I go to sample daily the richness of life in all its profound chaos?
Theresa Brown
Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.
Edith Cavell
The trouble with Clare was, not only that she wanted to have her cake and eat it too, but that she wanted to nibble at the cakes of other folk as well.
Nella Larsen
It was only that she wanted him to be happy, resenting, however, his inability to be so with things as they were, and never acknowledging that though she did want him to be happy, it was only in her own way and by some plan of hers for him that she truly desired him to be so.
Nella Larsen
…a woman's always safe and comfortable when a fellow's down on his luck.
Louisa May Alcott
To be strong, and beautiful, and go round making music all the time. Yes, she could do that, and with a very earnest prayer Polly asked for the strength of an upright soul, the beauty of a tender heart, the power to make her life a sweet and stirring song, helpful while it lasted, remembered when it died.
Louisa May Alcott
I don't like favors; they oppress and make me fell like a slave. I'd rather do everything for myself, and be perfectly independent.
Louisa May Alcott
Jo couldn’t even lose her heart in a decorous manner, but sternly tried to quench her feelings, and failing to do so, led a somewhat agitated life. She was mortally afraid of being laughed at for surrendering, after her many and vehement declarations of independence.
Louisa May Alcott
You can go through the world with your elbows out and your nose in the air, and call it independence, if you like. That's not my way.
Louisa May Alcott
Trifles show character
Louisa May Alcott
The more one gets the more one wants
Louisa May Alcott
Women work a good many miracles and I have a persuasion that they may preform even that of raising the standard of manhood by refusing to echo such sayings. Let the boys be boys the longer the better and let the young men sew their wild oats if they must, but mothers, sisters and friends may help to make the crop a small one and keep many tares from spoiling the harvest by believing and showing that they believe in the possibility of loyalty to the virtues which make men manliest in good women's eyes.
Louisa May Alcott
Ah! Thou gifest me such hope and courage, and I haf nothing to gif back but a full heart and these empty hands," cried the Professor, quite overcome.Jo never, never would learn to be proper, for when he said that as they stood upon the steps, she just put both hands into his, whispering tenderly, "Not empty now," and, stooping down, kissed her Friedrich under the umbrella.
Louisa May Alcott
The reason why Jane’s spirit was not broken was that she had a secret. It was her own special secret and she had told no one else except Peggy. She locked it in her heart and hugged it to herself. It was this glorious secret that filled her with such irrepressible joy and exhilaration. But it was also to be the cause of her greatest disaster, and her life-long grief.The rumour that her father was a high-born gentleman in Parliament must have reached Jane’s ears when she was a little girl. Perhaps she had heard the officers talking about it, or perhaps another child had heard the adults talking and told her. Perhaps Jane’s mother had told another workhouse inmate, who had passed it on. One can never tell how rumours start.To Jane, it was not a rumour. It was an absolute fact. Her daddy was a high-born gentleman, who one day would come and take her away. She fantasised endlessly about her daddy. She talked to him, and he talked to her.
Jennifer Worth
As human beings, we haven’t lost our intuition; we just stopped paying attention
Heidi DuPree
It's highly virtuous to say we'll be good, but we can't do it all at once, and it takes a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together before some of us even get our feet set in the right way
Louisa May Alcott
I almost wish I hadn't any conscience; its so inconvenient. If I didn't care about doing right and didn't feel uncomfortable when doing wrong, I should get on capitally. I can't help wishing sometimes that Father and Mother hadn't been so particular about such things. Ah Joe, instead of wishing that, thank God that Father and Mother were particular and pity from your heart those who have no such guardians to hedge them round with principles that may seem like prison walls to impatient youth, but which will prove sure foundations to build character upon in womanhood.
Louisa May Alcott
I almost wish I hadn't any conscience, it's so inconvenient. If I didn't care about doing right, and didn't feel uncomfortable when doing wrong, I should get on capitally. I can't help wishing, sometimes, that father and mother hadn't been so dreadfully particular about such things. -- Jo
Louisa May Alcott
On, I don't think I'm a genius!' cried Josie, growing calm and sober as she listened to the melodious voice and looked into the expressive face that filled her with confidence, so strong, sincere and kindly was it. 'I only want to find out if I have talent enough to go on, and after years of study be able to act well in any of the good plays people never tire of seeing. I don't expected to be a Mrs. Siddons or a Miss Cameron, much as I long to be; but it does seem as if I had something in me which can't come out in any way but this. When I act I'm perfectly happy. I seem to live, to be in my own world, and each new part is a new friend. I love Shakespeare, and am never tired of his splendid people. Of course I don't understand it all; but it's like being alone at night with the mountains and the stars, solemn and grand, and I try to imagine how it will look when the sun comes up, and all is glorious and clear to me. I can't see, but I feel the beauty, and long to express it.
Louisa May Alcott
It takes people a long time to learn the difference between talent and genius, especially ambitious young men and women.
Louisa May Alcott
…because talent isn't genius, and no amount of energy can make it so. I want to be great, or nothing.
Louisa May Alcott
As to the other three, if they had been perfection they would not have been real girls, and you could not have wept over their trials and laughed over their pleasures.
Louisa May Alcott
Faith is a private matter, usually held deep within a person, quiet, impossible to recognise or understand, if you have no faith yourself
Jennifer Worth
It does seem as if the more one gets the more one wants
Louisa May Alcott
I was never like the rest of you, making plans about the great things I'd do, I never saw myself as anything much, just shy, stupid little Beth, who's only use was at home. Why does everyone want to go away? I love being home, but I don't like being left behind. Now I'm the one going ahead, No one can stop God if He wants me, But I'm afraid I shall be homesick for you... even in heaven.
Louisa May Alcott
I’m talking to you in bed at one in the morning. How mad can I be?”I picture him there, in what, flannel pajamas? Underwear? Nothing at all?
Jeannine Garsee
Boys don't gush, so I can stand it. The last time I let in a party of girls, one fell into my arms and said, "Darling, love me!" I wanted to shake her,' answered Mrs. Jo, wiping her pen with energy.
Louisa May Alcott
Through enjoyment we endure.
Florence Ditlow
The rooms were very still while the pages were softly turned and the winter sunshine crept in to touch the bright heads and serious faces with a Christmas greeting.
Louisa May Alcott
How people die remains in the memory of those who live on.
Cicely Saunders
I feel like a little tug in a great storm. But I'm fastened to a great ship on ahead. It's going into port and can't lose its way.
Patricia St. John
In the natural course of events, the period when death is taking over a body is fairly brief. My grandfather (who had no medication) had about a fortnight of this period in his life. Today it can drag on for months or years.
Jennifer Worth
The dying need only a hand to hold and a quiet in which to make their departure.
Jennifer Worth
To be present at the time of death can be one of the most important moments in life. To see those last, awesome minutes of transition from life into death can only be described as a spiritual experience. And then afterwards, when the body lies still, one gets the strange feeling that the person has simply gone away, as though he has said, ‘I’m just going into the other room. I’ll leave that thing there while I’m gone; I won’t be needing it.’ It’s a very odd experience – the body is there, but the person has gone. No one would say, ‘I am a body’; we say, ‘I have a body’. So what, therefore, is the ‘I’? The ‘I’ or perhaps ‘me’ has just stepped into the other room. It is a strange feeling, and I can’t describe it in any other way. Another thing that is strange is that the body left behind looks smaller, quite a lot smaller, than the living person. The face looks the same, but calm and relaxed, wrinkles and worry lines are smoothed, and a feeling of serenity pervades the entire room. But the person, the ‘I’, has gone. It also greatly helps the process of mourning to see the body after death, and preferably to assist in the laying out. Nurses used to do the job when I was young girl, and we always asked the relatives if they wanted to help. Nurses don’t do it any more, but anyone can ask.
Jennifer Worth
Handling a dead body is not a repugnant or frightening experience and, somehow, it helps to accept the fact that the soul of that person has gone if you treat the body with reverence and respect before it is finally disposed of by cremation or burial.
Jennifer Worth
It is well nigh impossible to talk to anyone about death, I find. Most people seem deeply embarrassed. It is like when I was a girl and nobody could talk about sex. We all did it, but nobody talked about it! We have now grown out of that silly taboo, and we must grow out of our inhibitions surrounding death. They have arisen largely because so few people see death any more, even though it is quite obviously in our midst. A cultural change must come, a new atmosphere of freedom, which will only happen if we open our closed minds.
Jennifer Worth
There is not a single dying human being who does not yearn for love, touch, understanding, and whose heart does not break from the withdrawal of those who should be drawing near.
Jennifer Worth
Perhaps, in a few people, I have seen what can be described as a struggle with death, and it can be distressing to behold. But for the vast majority of people death is gentle, tender.
Jennifer Worth
Human life is precious.’ ‘And human death is sacred. Or at least it should be – and would be, if we allowed it to be. In the short experience I have had, sitting with the dying, I can say that the last few hours are always peaceful, almost spiritual. Wouldn’t you call that a sacred time?
Jennifer Worth
That was all I wanted!" whispered Polly, in a tone which caused him to feel that the race of angels was not entirely extinct.
Louisa May Alcott
That's the thing about empathy—even people with an abundance of it can run out.
Theresa Brown
Everything I write is sinful, full of lies, especially the big one, the one you go to hell for: pretending not to be a fool.
Sallie Tisdale
Life has taught me one supreme lesson. This is that we must—if we are really to live at all, if we are to enjoy the life more abundant promised by the Sages of Wisdom—we must put our convictions into action. My remuneration has been that I have been privileged to act out my faith.
Margaret Sanger
There are things that mothers can manage best when they do their duty.
Louisa May Alcott