Quotes about nursing (264 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Even the Russians are fighting us. They've brought in Jewish pilots, nurses, and doctors. Everybody's ganging up on us. We didn't think it would happen this way.”

Josef Mengele (1911–1979) Nazi officer and physician

As quoted in Defy the darkness: A Tale of Courage in the Shadow of Mengele (2000) by Joe Rosenblum and David Kohn, p. 192

Way , Thinking , Fight

“O sleep, O gentle sleep, Nature's soft nurse, how have I frightened thee. That thou no more will weigh my eyelids down, And steep my senses in forgetfulness?”

William Shakespeare Henry IV, Part 2

Source: Henry IV, Part 2

Nature , Sense , Sleep , Forgetting

“I want to live my next life backwards: You start out dead and get that out of the way. Then you wake up in a nursing home feeling better every day. Then you get kicked out for being too healthy. Enjoy your retirement and collect your pension. Then when you start work, you get a gold watch on your first day. You work 40 years until you're too young to work. You get ready for High School: drink alcohol, party, and you're generally promiscuous. Then you go to primary school, you become a kid, you play, and you have no responsibilities. Then you become a baby, and then… You spend your last 9 months floating peacefully in luxury, in spa-like conditions – central heating, room service on tap, and then… You finish off as an orgasm.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Variations of this piece have also been misattributed to Andy Rooney and Woody Allen. The original source is a variation on a piece by Sean Morey. ( "snopes.com: Andy Rooney on Everything", Snopes.com, 2012-09-09 http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/rooney3.asp, )
Misattributed

Life , Alcohol , School , Way

“I use the word nursing for want of a better.”

Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing

Notes on Nursing (1860)
Context: I use the word nursing for want of a better. It has been limited to signify little more than the administration of medicines and the application of poultices. It ought to signify the proper use of fresh air, light, warmth, cleanliness, quiet, and the proper selection and administration of diet — all at the least expense of vital power to the patient.

“I’m a good person but a shitty writer. You’re a shitty person but a good writer. We’d make a good team. I don’t want to ask you any favors, but if you have time – and from what I saw, you have plenty – I was wondering if you could write a eulogy for Hazel. I’ve got notes and everything, but if you could just make it into a coherent whole or whatever? Or even just tell me what I should say differently. Here’s the thing about Hazel: Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That’s what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease. I want to leave a mark. But Van Houten: The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, “They’ll remember me now,” but (a) they don’t remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion. (Okay, maybe I’m not such a shitty writer. But I can’t pull my ideas together, Van Houten. My thoughts are stars I can’t fathom into constellations.) We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can’t stop pissing on fire hydrants. I know it’s silly and useless – epically useless in my current state – but I am an animal like any other. Hazel is different. She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We’re as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we’re not likely to do either. People will say it’s sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it’s not sad, Van Houten. It’s triumphant. It’s heroic. Isn’t that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm. The real heroes anyway aren’t the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention. The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn’t actually invent anything. He just noticed that people with cowpox didn’t get smallpox. After my PET scan lit up, I snuck into the ICU and saw her while she was unconscious. I just walked in behind a nurse with a badge and I got to sit next to her for like ten minutes before I got caught. I really thought she was going to die, too. It was brutal: the incessant mechanized haranguing of intensive care. She had this dark cancer water dripping out of her chest. Eyes closed. Intubated. But her hand was still her hand, still warm and the nails painted this almost black dark almost blue color, and I just held her hand and tried to imagine the world without us and for about one second I was a good enough person to hope she died so she would never know that I was going, too. But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar. A nurse guy came in and told me I had to leave, that visitors weren’t allowed, and I asked if she was doing okay, and the guy said, “She’s still taking on water.””

John Green book The Fault in Our Stars

A desert blessing, an ocean curse. What else? She is so beautiful. You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers."
Augustus "Gus" Waters, p. 310-313
The Fault in Our Stars (2012)

Love , Death , War , People

“No one I met at this time — doctors, nurses, practicantes, or fellow-patients — failed to assure me that a man who is hit through the neck and survives it is the luckiest creature alive. I could not help thinking that it would be even luckier not to be hit at all.”

George Orwell book Homage to Catalonia

Homage to Catalonia (1938)

Thinking , Time , Help

“We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter's evening. Some of us let these great dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nurse them through bad days till they bring them to the sunshine and light which comes always to those who sincerely hope that their dreams will come true.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

As quoted by Thomas A. Bruno in Take your dreams and Run (South Plainfield: Bridge, 1984), p. 2-3. Source: Dr. Preston Williams (2002): By the Way - A Snapshot Diagnosis of the Inner-City Dilemma, p. 38-39. Xulun Press, Fairfax, Virginia http://books.google.de/books?id=Xn9jxqatFecC&pg=PA38&lpg=PA38&dq=woodrow+wilson+We+Grow+Great+By+Dreams%27&source=bl&ots=TtioQ-yO0-&sig=qHWPj4-8g3hSjcV-qJTbzNg6nuI&hl=de&sa=X&ei=1QZ0U4DBOaf80QWSqYDQAw&ved=0CHYQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=woodrow%20wilson%20We%20Grow%20Great%20By%20Dreams'&f=false
1880s

Men , Dreams , Hope , Spring

“Jacinta never told Penelope that she loved her. The nurse knew that those who really love, love in silence, with deeds and not with words.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Variant: The nurse knew that those who really love, love in silence, with deeds and not with words.
Source: The Shadow of the Wind

Love , Silence

“Human beings sometimes find a kind of pleasure in nursing painful emotions, in blaming themselves without reason or even against reason.”

Isaac Asimov book Robots and Empire

Source: Robots and Empire

Pain , Pleasure

“You can kill people with compassion. That's the Freudian Oedipal situation. Think about working in a nursing home. There's a rule of thumb that we can use as a guide when interacting with people in general. It is this: Do not do anything for anyone that they can do themselves. You just steal it from them. Imagine that you're working with elderly people. It might be easier to do something for them than to let them struggle through it. You just speed their demise by taking away their last vestiges of independence. People do the same thing with kids. The answer is: struggle through it. When people struggle through things on their own, using their own abilities - they learn how to live. You have to be one heard-hearted sonofabitch to allow this, but it's what's best for people. Think about that. What's the alternative? If we cater to people all the time, then we end up becoming a major cause of them becoming people who are always catered to. This is an incredibly important lesson in the triumph of fostering independence over casual compassion.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

People , Home , Imagination , Thinking

“Man is made of ordinary things, and habit is his nurse.”

Friedrich Schiller Wallenstein

Act I, sc. iv
Wallenstein (1798), Part II - Wallensteins Tod (The Death of Wallenstein)

“It is no fault in others that the Methodist Church sends more soldiers to the field, more nurses to the hospital, and more prayers to Heaven than any. God bless the Methodist Church — bless all the churches — and blessed be to God, who, in this our great trial, giveth us the churches.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

To the 1864 general conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, as quoted in Abraham Lincoln : A History Vol. 6 (1890) by John George Nicolay and John Hay, Ch. 15, p. 324
1860s

God

“A child free from the guilt of ownership and the burden of economic competition will grow up with the will to do what needs doing and the capacity for joy in doing it. It is useless work that darkens the heart. The delight of the nursing mother, of the scholar, of the successful hunter, of the good cook, of the skillful maker, of anyone doing needed work and doing it well—this durable joy is perhaps the deepest source of human affection, and of sociality as a whole.”

Ursula K. Le Guin Hainish Cycle

Source: Hainish Cycle, (1974), Chapter 8 (p. 247)

Success , Heart , Joy , Cooking

“I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother's race.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Circulated in "A Coil of Rage" http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/coilofrage.asp, a 2011 mass e-mail attributing several fabricated quotations to Obama.
Originally a statement about Obama by Steve Sailer from "Obama's Identity Crisis", The American Conservative (), recast into first-person as if said by Obama:
And yet, at least through age 33 when he wrote Dreams from My Father, he found solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against his mother's race.
Misattributed

Sense

“We want to be clearly understood on this point. We are not trying to say that signs and rites are a big piece of humbug. They would be such if people did not need them; but we have to recognize that everyone has not the same degree of intelligence. Children have always had fairy stories told to them, and these stories will continue to be told as long as there are nurses and mothers. Children have faith and this is what saves them. Imagine a child of seven saying: 'I do not want to accept anything I cannot understand.' What could one teach such a monster? Accept what your teachers tell you to begin with, my fine fellow, then study it and, if you are not an idiot, you will understand it by-and-by.”

Eliphas Levi (1810–1875) French writer

Book Two: The Royal Mystery or the Art of Subduing the Powers, Chapter XI: The Arcana of Solomon's Ring
The Great Secret: or Occultism Unveiled

Children , People , Faith , Imagination

“Some American writer has said “the snakes in this district may be divided into one species—the venomous”. The same principle applies here. Postage-Stamp-Cases may be divided into one species, the “Wonderland”. Imitations of it will soon appear, no doubt: but they cannot include the two Pictorial Surprises, which are copyright.You don't see why I call them 'Surprises'? Well, take the Case in your left hand, and regard it attentively. You see Alice nursing the Duchess's Baby? (An entirely new combination, by the way : it doesn't occur in the book.) Now, with your right thumb and forefinger, lay hold of the little book, and suddenly pull it out. The Baby has turned into a Pig I If that doesn't surprise you, why, I suppose you wouldn't be surprised if your own Mother-in-law suddenly turned into a Gyroscope!”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter-Writing (1890)

Books , Law , Way , Appearance

“Some sixty years ago, Pope Pius XII, in a memorable address to anaesthesiologists and intensive care specialists, stated that there is no obligation to have recourse in all circumstances to every possible remedy and that, in some specific cases, it is permissible to refrain from their use… The specific element of this criterion is that it considers “the result that can be expected, taking into account the state of the sick person and his or her physical and moral resources”. It thus makes possible a decision that is morally qualified as withdrawal of “overzealous treatment”.
Such a decision responsibly acknowledges the limitations of our mortality, once it becomes clear that opposition to it is futile. “Here one does not will to cause death; one’s inability to impede it is merely accepted” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 2278). This difference of perspective restores humanity to the accompaniment of the dying, while not attempting to justify the suppression of the living. It is clear that not adopting, or else suspending, disproportionate measures, means avoiding overzealous treatment; from an ethical standpoint, it is completely different from euthanasia, which is always wrong, in that the intent of euthanasia is to end life and cause death.
The anguish associated with conditions that bring us to the threshold of human mortality, and the difficulty of the decision we have to make, may tempt us to step back from the patient. Yet this is where, more than anything else, we are called to show love and closeness, recognizing the limit that we all share and showing our solidarity.
Let each of us give love in his or her own way—as a father, a mother, a son, a daughter, a brother or sister, a doctor or a nurse. But give it!”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

Message of His Holiness Pope Francis to the Participants in the European Regional Meeting of the World Medical Association, From the Vatican, 7 November 2017 https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/pont-messages/2017/documents/papa-francesco_20171107_messaggio-monspaglia.html
2010s, 2017

Love , Life , Death , Way

“I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.”

Jonathan Swift book A Modest Proposal

A Modest Proposal (1729)

Food

“[Amazons] They were conquerors, horse tamers, and huntresses who gave birth to children but did not nurse or rear them. They were an extreme, feminist wing of a young human race, whose other extreme wing consisted of the stringent patriarchies.”

Helen Diner (1874–1948) Austrian writer and historian

Mothers and Amazons; the first feminine history of culture https://archive.org/details/mothersamazons00ecks, p. 123.

Children , Birth , Horse

“Dinocrates, I appreciate your design as excellent in composition, and I am delighted with it, but I apprehend that anybody who should found a city in that spot would be censured for bad judgement. For as a newborn babe cannot be nourished without the nurse's milk, nor conducted to the approaches that lead to growth in life, so a city cannot thrive without fields and the fruits thereof pouring into its walls.”

Alexander the Great (-356–-323 BC) King of Macedon

Vitruvius, De Architectura Bk. 2, Introduction, Sec. 3

Life

“Do you remember back at the hotel when you promised that if we lived, you'd get dressed up in a nurse's outfit and give me a sponge bath?"
"Actually, I think you misheard," Clary said. "It was Simon who promised you the sponge bath."
Jace looked involuntarily over at Simon, who smiled at him widely. "As soon as I'm back on my feet, handsome.”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

"I knew we should have left you a rat."
Jace, Clary, and Simon, pg. 296-297
The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)

Smile , Thinking

“We are misunderstood, we are misrepresented, we are misreported. We are not nurses, we are not doctors, we are not teachers, we are not social workers. We are religious, we are religious, we are religious.”

Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin

As quoted in Angelo Devananda, Daily Prayers with Mother Teresa (Fount, 1987), p. 91
1980s

Teachers

“[To Kelly, after he's become suspicious] You haven't been playing doctors and nurses have you?”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

The Osbournes television show

“I see God in every human being. When I wash the leper's wounds, I feel I am nursing the Lord himself. Is it not a beautiful experience?”

Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin

Statement of 1977, as quoted in Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (2011) by Susan Ratcliffe, p. 373
1970s

God , Beauty , Feeling

“The condition of mankind is, and always has been, so miserable and depraved that, if anyone were to say to the poet: "For God's sake stop singing and do something useful like putting on the kettle or fetching bandages," what just reason could he give for refusing? But nobody says this. The self-appointed unqualified nurse says: "You are to sing the patient a song which will make him believe that I, and I alone, can cure him. If you can't or won't, I shall confiscate your passport and send you to the mines." And the poor patient in his delirium cries: "Please sing me a song which will give me sweet dreams instead of nightmares. If you succeed, I will give you a penthouse in New York or a ranch in Arizona."”

W. H. Auden book The Dyer's Hand

"Writing", p. 27
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

God , Dreams , Singing

“Faith is the champion of grace, and love the nurse; but humility is the beauty of grace.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

Source: Quotes from secondary sources, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers, 1895, P. 221.

Love , Faith , Beauty

“The most interesting persons are always those who have nothing special to do: children, nurses, policemen and actors at 11 o'clock in the morning.”

Christopher Morley Travels in Philadelphia

Travels in Philadelphia (1920)

Children , Personality

“I want to live my next life backwards: You start out dead and get that out of the way. Then you wake up in a nursing home feeling better every day. Then you get kicked out for being too healthy. Enjoy your retirement and collect your pension. Then when you start work, you get a gold watch on your first day. You work 40 years until you're too young to work. You get ready for High School: drink alcohol, party, and you're generally promiscuous. Then you go to primary school, you become a kid, you play, and you have no responsibilities. Then you become a baby, and then… You spend your last 9 months floating peacefully in luxury, in spa-like conditions - central heating, room service on tap, and then… You finish off as an orgasm.”

Andy Rooney (1919–2011) writer, humorist, television personality

Variations of this piece have been misattributed to Andy Rooney, George Carlin, and Woody Allen. The original source is a variation on a piece by Sean Morey. ( "snopes.com: Andy Rooney on Everything", Snopes.com, 2012-09-09 http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/rooney3.asp, )
Misattributed

Life , Alcohol , School , Way

“Now, more than any time in our history, we will be judged by our capacity for compassion. Our ability to come through this, won’t just be down to what government or businesses do, but by the individual acts of kindness that we show each other. The small business who does everything they can not to lay off their staff. The student who does a shop for their elderly neighbour. The retired nurse who volunteers to cover some shifts in their local hospital. When this is over, and it will be over, we want to look back on this moment and remember the many small acts of kindness done by us and to us. We want to look back on this time and remember how we thought first of others and acted with decency. We want to look back on this time and remember how, in the face of a generation-defining moment, we undertook a collective national effort - and we stood together. It’s on all of us.”

Rishi Sunak (1980) Chancellor of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom

Statement on the Coronavirus as Chancellor (20 March 2020)

Instagram post @rishisunakmp https://www.instagram.com/p/B990ItXHhXW/ (21 March 2020)
2020

Business , Time , History , Effort

“Peace, peace! Dost thou not see my baby at my breast, That sucks the nurse asleep?”

Cleopatra VII (-69–-30 BC) last active pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt

As quoted, Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare, Act V, scene ππ (1623)

Baby , Peace

“I'm scared," he says.
"I know," says the nurse.
"I want you all to go to Hell."
"That's natural.”

Neal Shusterman book Unwind

Source: Unwind

Hell , Nature

“I have always liked the phrase "nursing a grudge " because many people are tender of their resentments as of the thing nearest their hearts.”

Marilynne Robinson Gilead

Source: Gilead

People , Heart

“All right, big guy, down you go."

Oh, yeah. Bed. Bed was good.

"And look who's here. It's Nurse Vishous.”

Jessica Bird book Lover Eternal

Source: Lover Eternal

Guy

“The world that used to nurse us
now keeps shouting inane instructions.
That's why I ran to the woods.”

Jim Harrison (1937–2016) American novelist, poet, essayist

Source: Songs of Unreason

World

“The plot is so tired that even this reviewer, who in infancy was let drop by a nurse with the result that she has ever since been mystified by amateur coin tricks, was able to guess the identity of the murderer from the middle of the book.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Books

“You can't change laws without first changing human nature.'
-Nurse Greta

You can't change human nature without first changing the law.'
-Nurse Yvonne”

Neal Shusterman book Unwind

Source: Unwind

Law , Nature , Change

“Jace threw himself against the door. It didn't budge. He cursed. "My shoulder will never be the same. I expect you to nurse me back to health."
-Jace to Clary, pg.284-”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Variant: My shoulder will never be the same. I expect you to nurse me back to health.'-Jace
'Just break the door down, will you?'-Clary
Source: City of Bones

Health

“Um, Dr. Alexander, there’s a couple out here who say they’re related to you. They…um…they’re biker people. (Nurse)
Hey, Julian. Tell Attila the Hun here that we’re okay so we can come and ooh and aah over the babies. (Eros)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Fantasy Lover

Source: Fantasy Lover

People , Baby

“Do you have a little white dress? I've had this deep-seated nurse fantasy about you, Murphy.”

Jim Butcher book Storm Front

Source: Storm Front

“A man must dream a long time in order to act with grandeur, and dreaming is nursed in darkness.”

Jean Genet (1910–1986) French novelist, playwright, poet and political activist

Dreams , Time

“My shoulder will never be the same. I expect you to nurse me back to health.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Health

“It's not that the Democrats are playing checkers and the Republicans are playing chess. It's that the Republicans are playing chess and the Democrats are in the nurse's office because once again they glued their balls to their thighs.”

Jon Stewart (1962) American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian

Source: America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction

“I don't know. When I was born there was a nurse taking care of me."
"What's the matter? Couldn't the nurse take care of herself?" "Sure she could. I just found that out too late.”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

“I, too, seem to be a connoisseur of rain, but it does not fill me with joy; it allows me to steep myself in a solitude I nurse like a vice I've refused to vanquish.”

Julia Glass book Three Junes

Source: Three Junes

Solitude , Joy

“I live my own life and nurse my own wounds. It's not the best way to live. But it's the way I am.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book Middlesex

Source: Middlesex

Life , Way

“Actually, I'd already briefed him, early this morning. Since we were up at six. Since, at six, the nurse had been overcome with the overwhelming compulsion to take Fang's temperature.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: School's Out—Forever

“Sooner strangle an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Source: Proverbs of Hell

“She pulled the bedclothes up as far as they would go and suppressed a perverse wish to have her old nurse come to chase away the darkness, perverse because she didn't know if she wanted the shadows to be empty or not.”

Megan Whalen Turner The Queen of Attolia

Source: The Queen of Attolia

“A woman must be nursed into subsistence by love, where a man can become stronger by being hated." - from 'Cows in Art Class”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Love , Hate , Art

“He knows that the only way he can accept losing her is if he can continue to hold her or be held by her. If they can somehow nurse each other out of this. Not with a wall.”

Michael Ondaatje book The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

Way

“She had given birth to me and nursed me and brought me up. She had known me before I knew myself and now she had no say in the matter. Life started out one thing and then suddenly turned a corner and became something else.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book Middlesex

Source: Middlesex

Life , Birth

“I'm just a girl in a nurse's uniform, but that doesn't mean I know how to save these men, and they- they are men in uniforms, but that doesn't mean they know how to die.”

Marcus Sedgwick (1968) British writer and illustrator

Source: The Foreshadowing

Men , Girl

“Girl, are you on medication?” Nurse Debra asked.
“No, of course not,” Madison answered impatiently.
“Maybe you should be,” Debra muttered.”

Kerrelyn Sparks (1955) American writer

Source: Sexiest Vampire Alive

Girl

“Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.--Robert Burns”

Robert Burns (1759–1796) Scottish poet and lyricist

“Doctors put a wall up between themselves and their patients; nurses broke it down.”

Jodi Picoult book Nineteen Minutes

Source: Nineteen Minutes

“Every seven years or so I look around me and I want to look at the society and I want to try and be everyone I'm seeing in the world right now. […] And I've done this all my life. I realized I used to do this in my mother's bedroom when I was 6. I used to be everyone in my village and everyone at school and everyone in the news, and I'm still doing that same show. I'm now 56. I think I can do it in my 80s. I'll just, you know, impersonate everyone around me then in the nursing home.”

Tracey Ullman (1959) English-born actress, comedian, singer, dancer, screenwriter, producer, director, author and businesswoman

Quoted by NPR http://www.npr.org/2016/10/28/499796182/british-comedian-tracey-ullman-brings-celebrity-impersonations-to-hbo in 2016, on what what drives her to do impersonations

Life , World , School , Home

“We all know the beautiful hymn commencing with the cheerful line: "Hark from the tombs, a doleful sound." Nothing could have been more appropriate for children. It is well to put a coffin where it can be seen from the cradle. When a mother nurses her child, an open grave should be at her feet. This would tend to make the babe serious, reflective, religious and miserable.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Why I Am an Agnostic (1896)

Children , Beauty

“Every few months Torrey’s parents flew from Mexico to Boston to harangue her. She was crazy, she had driven them crazy, she was malingering, they couldn’t afford it, and so forth. After they left Torrey would give a report in her tired drawl. “Then Mom said, ‘You made me into an alcoholic,’ and then Dad said, ‘I’m going to see you never get out of this place,’ and then they sort of switched and Mom said, ‘You’re nothing but a junkie,’ and Dad said, ‘I’m not going to pay for you to take it easy in here while we suffer.’ ” “Why do you see them?” Georgina asked. “Oh,” said Torrey. “It’s how they show their love,” said Lisa. Her parents never made contact with her. The nurses agreed with Lisa. They told Torrey she was mature for agreeing to see her parents when she knew they were going to confuse her. Confuse was the nurses’ word for abuse.”

Susanna Kaysen book Girl, Interrupted

Girl, Interrupted (1994)

Love , Alcohol , Moms , Parent

“Nursed amid her [London's] noise, her crowds, her beloved smoke, what have I been doing all my life, if I have not lent out my heart with usury to such scenes?”

Charles Lamb (1775–1834) English essayist

Letter to Thomas Manning (February 15, 1802)

Life , Heart

“The unusual treatment began soon after his birth, when Micheau was sent to live with a humble family in a nearby village. Having a peasant wet-nurse was normal enough, but Montaigne’s father wanted his son to absorb an understanding of commoners’ ways along with their breast milk, so that be would grow up comfortable with the people who most needed a seigneur’s help. Instead of bringing a nurse to the baby, therefore, he sent the baby to the nurse, and left him there long enough to be weaned. Even at the christening, Pierre [Montaigne’s father] had “people of the lowest class” hold the infant over the font. From the start, Montaigne had the impression at once of being a peasant among peasants, and of being very special and different. This is the mixture of feelings that would stay with him for life. H felt ordinary, but knew that the very fact of realizing his ordinariness made him extraordinary.”

Sarah Bakewell book How to Live

Source: How to Live, or, A Life of Montaigne in one Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer (2010), p. 52.

Life , People , Family , Way

“I'm going to have cute boobs 'til I'm 90, so there's that. I'll have the best boobs in the nursing home. I'll be the envy of all the ladies around the bridge table.”

Christina Applegate (1971) American actress

During an interview on Good Morning America about her recent mastectomy. (August 19, 2008)

Home , Envy

“The modern young man,' said Aunt Dahlia, 'is a congenital idiot and wants a nurse to lead him by the hand and some strong attendant to kick him regularly at intervals of a quarter of an hour.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Very Good, Jeeves

Very Good, Jeeves (1930)

Strong

“Away with those perfumes that do me harm!
I hate them, nurse, and would you have me feel
Their drunken vapors make my senses reel?”

Stéphane Mallarmé (1842–1898) French Symbolist poet

Hérodiade.
Hérodiade (1898)

Hate , Feeling , Sense

“At the base of the plane, Styles freelance photographer is down on one knee, going handheld, still in the same Hawaiian shirt. The famously reclusive R. Vaughn Corliss is nowhere in view. Doug Llewellyn’s wardrobe furnished by Hugo Boss. The Malina blanket for the artist’s lap and thighs, however, is the last minute fix of a production oversight, retrieved from the car of an apprentice gaffer whose child is still nursing, and is not what anyone would call an appropriate color or design, and appears unbilled. There’s also some eleventh hour complication involving the ground level camera and the problem of keeping the commode’s special monitor out of its upward shot, since video capture of a camera’s own monitor causes what is known in the industry as feedback glare — the artist in such a case would see, not his own emergent Victory, but a searing and amorphous light.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

"The Suffering Channel", Oblivion: Stories
Short stories

Cars , Color , Problem , Light

“As I admired it [a red pencil and chalk drawing by Degas of a young mother, nursing her child] he showed me a whole series done from the same model and with the same sort of rhythm. He is a draughtsman of the first order; it would be interesting to show all these preparatory studies for a painting to the public, which generally imagines that the impressionists work in a very casual way. I do not think it possible to go further in the rendering of form.”

Berthe Morisot (1841–1895) painter from France

note in Berthe's Journal, Jan. 1886; as quoted in The Private Lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe; Harper Collins Publishers, New York, 2006, pp. 262-263
Berthe visited Degas in his studio
1881 - 1895

Way , Imagination , Thinking , Study

“The unique function of the nurse is to assist the individual, sick or well, in the performance of those activities contributing to health or its recovery (or to peaceful death) that he would perform unaided if he had the necessary strength, will or knowledge.”

Virginia Henderson

Henderson, V., The Nature of Nursing (1966), New York: Macmillan Publishing, page 15.
Henderson is famous for a definition of nursing

Death , Health , Peace , Knowledge

“There are few professions whose primary objective is to advance the cause of humanity rather than simply to make money or accrue power. Among this limited group of humanitarians I would number teachers, nurses, bookstore owners, and bartenders.”

Jack McDevitt (1935) American novelist, Short story writer

Source: Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins, Odyssey (2006), Chapter 14 (p. 124)

Money , Teachers

“The American people have been offered two lousy choices. One, which is corporatism, a fascist type of approach, or, socialism. We deliver a lot of services in this country through the free market, and when you do it through the free market prices go down. But in medicine, prices go up. Technology doesn't help the cost, it goes up instead of down. But if you look at almost all of our industries that are much freer, technology lowers the prices. Just think of how the price of cell phones goes down. Poor people have cell phones, and televisions, and computers. Prices all go down. But in medicine, they go up, and there's a reason for that, that's because the government is involved with it… I do [think that prices will go down without government involvement], but probably a lot more than what you're thinking about, because you have to have competition in the delivery of care. For instance, if you have a sore throat and you have to come see me, you have to wait in the waiting room, and then get checked, and then get a prescription, and it ends up costing you $100. If you had true competition, you should be able to go to a nurse, who could for 1/10 the cost very rapidly do it, and let her give you a prescription for penicillin. See, the doctors and the medical profession have monopolized the system through licensing. And that's not an accident, because they like the idea that you have to go see the physician and pay this huge price. And patients can sort this out, they're not going to go to a nurse if they need brain surgery…”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Interview by Laura Knoy on NHPR, June 5, 2007 http://info.nhpr.org/node/13016
2000s, 2006-2009

People , Idea , Thinking , Waiting

“This picture will try to show the Nazism is a matter of mind, not geography, and that there are Nazis — and people of good will — in every country. The world can't spend its life looking over its shoulder and nursing hatreds. There would be no progress that way.”

Marlon Brando (1924–2004) American screen and stage actor

At a press conference for The Young Lions in Berlin; republished in Marlon Brando, Portraits and Film Stills 1946-1995 (1996)

Life , People , World , Way

“God promised by the mouth of Isaiah that queens should be the nursing mothers of the church.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Referring to (Isaiah 49:23) http://bible.crosswalk.com/OnlineStudyBible/bible.cgi?section=1&word=nursing%20AND%20QUEENS&version=kjv in a letter to William Cecil (May 1559), in Bonnet (1980), op. cit., p. 212; also in Hastings Robinson, ed., The Zurich letters: Comprising the Correspondence of several English Bishops and others with some of the Helvetian reformers, during the early part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC02160004&id=CP4QAAAAIAAJ&pg=RA2-PR17&lpg=RA2-PR17&dq=%22zurich+letters%22#PPP16,M1, (Second Series. A.D. 1558-1602), Cambridge (England): University Press, 1845, p. 35.

God

“I could bear to suffer… so many have suffered. But why must it be like this? I have not deserved it. I have been true in friendship; I have faithfully nursed others in sickness… Why must I die like this, alone with my mortal enemy?”

Willa Cather book My Mortal Enemy

Part II, Ch. 5
My Mortal Enemy (1926)

Friendship , Suffering

“Having in mind the theory of relativity, both special and general, I should like to extend with pleasure my warm greetings to all in attendance, colleagues and guests, no matter whether they consider themselves as eastbound or westbound citizens.
…I have always compared nations with heterogeneous conglomerates made up of individuals or social groups, all strongly cemented by homogeneous ethical feelings. Such indeed should also be our unique charming blue planet, and I nurse the hope that during what is left of time I shall witness the end product of such a process of international diagenesis. The reappearance of the Halley's Comet is perhaps an omen in this respect…”

Ivan Kostov Nikolov (1913–2004) Bulgarian mineralogist

Pleasure , Hope , Feeling , Time

“Yes,” he said. “You see, I, too, have been seeing a lot of things, now that I’ve been spending so much time at the hospital.” He took a deep breath. “One night I got up and went down the hallway to see this woman who was crying. She was an elderly woman and the doctors didn’t know what to do for her. She was dying. I held her hand and stroked her forehead like she was a child. She immediately calmed down and was able to pass over in her sleep so peacefully. “The night nurse was furious, and the next morning she told the doctors what I’d done. They, too, became upset, telling me I didn’t have the authority to visit other patients. That poor nurse and the doctors, they just weren’t prepared to accept the simple truth that they aren’t in control. No one is in control, Mundo. We’re all just God’s guests for a short time.” I don’t know why, but I now asked, “Joseph, are you dying?”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

He looked at me straight in the eyes. “Yes, Mundo,” he said, “I’m dying.”
Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

God , Truth , Sleep , Time

“First
Let the rockets flash and the cannon thunder,
This child is a marvel, a matchless wonder.
A staggering child, a child astounding,
Dazzling, diaperless, dumfounding,
Stupendous, miraculous, unsurpassed,
A child to stagger and flabbergast,
Bright as a button, sharp as a thorn,
And the only perfect one ever born.
Second
Arrived this evening at half-past nine.
Everybody is doing fine.
Is it a boy, or quite the reverse?
You can call in the morning and ask the nurse.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

"First Child . . . Second Child"
Versus (1949)

Boy , Past , Perfection

“I… chose rather to publish… in puris Naturalibus, or as they were produced as first, than be at the Trouble of reducing them into any other Form… I could not bear the Pains of reading over again a great Part of these Things; either from my being tired with them, or not caring to undergo the Pains and Study in new modelling them. But I have done in this as weakly Mothers, who give up their Offspring to the Care of their Friends, either to Nurse and bring up, or abandon to the wide World. One of which is Mr. Isaac Newton, my Collegue, a Man of great Learning and Sagacity, who revised my Copy and noted such Things as wanted Correction, and even gave me some of his own, which you will see here and there interspersed with mine, not without their due Commendations. The other is Mr. John Collins (who may be deservedly called the Mersennas of our Nation, Born to promote this Science, both with his own Labours, and those of others. Who with much Trouble took care of the Edition.”

Isaac Barrow (1630–1677) English Christian theologian, and mathematician

Preface
Geometrical Lectures (1735)

Pain , World , Study , Learning

“As long as diseases afflict living beings
May I be the doctor, the medicine
And also the nurse
Who restores them to health.”

Šantidéva (685–763) 8th-century Indian Buddhist monk and scholar

Bodhicaryavatara

Health , Disease , Affliction

“Chivalry!-why, maiden, she is the nurse of pure and high affection-the stay of the oppressed, the redresser of grievances, the curb of the power of the tyrant-Nobility were but an empty name without her, and liberty finds the best protection in her lance and her sword.”

Walter Scott book Ivanhoe

Source: Ivanhoe (1819), Ch. 29, Ivanhoe explains to Rebecca the virtues of chivalry.

“I really hope that the symbolism isn't lost on you four Superstars in the chamber right now, because it's killing me. Here's four extremely weak individuals that, every day, are locked inside a prison of addiction, like most of these people here today; and now, the four of you are locked inside the Elimination Chamber with me. And be sure, it's not me locked in here with you — it's you locked in here with me. And tomorrow morning, when you're nursing the pain and the wounds that this chamber and myself have caused you, I want you to remember that when your pod door opens and you came out and I defeated you, don't think of it as failure. Think of it as me saving you. [Standing over Rey Mysterio's pod] Think of it as me setting you free.
Punk: [To Undertaker, after elimination R-Truth] You'd better pray that your pod door opens last, 'cause when you come out, I'm gonna make you tap out, just like I did before. [To John Morrison] And I'm gonna prove to you that your decadent rock life will get you nowhere. I'm gonna prove to the world that straight-edge means I'm better than you! For those of you at home, feel free, place your hand on the screen and feel CM Punk flow through you!
Lawler: Matt, did you just put your hand on the screen?
Striker: Yes.
Lawler: Do you feel CM Punk flow through you?
Punk: Nobody can stop me!
Cole: Guys, the sermon's over in [checking the timer] three seconds.”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

Elimination Chamber - February 21, 2010
Friday Night SmackDown

Life , Pain , People , Truth

“The land of scholars and the nurse of arms.”

Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774) Irish physician and writer

Source: The Traveller (1764), Line 356.

“What a singularly deep impression her injustice seems to have made on your heart… Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs.”

Charlotte Brontë book Jane Eyre

Helen Burns to Jane (Ch. 6)
Jane Eyre (1847)

Life , Appearance , Passion , Heart

“The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone!”

Edmund Burke book Reflections on the Revolution in France

Volume iii, p. 331
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Life

“Frances Egan, the school nurse, left her nutrition charts long enough to tell me there was nothing that could have been done. "Evelyn had a rough time with her father," she said. "Once she came in beaten black and blue."
"What did you do for her?"
"I gave her a cup of tea."
"Tea? Why tea, for heaven's sake?"
"Why? Because I know all about it," she said, shaking with anger. "I know more than anyone here what goes on outside — poverty, disease, dope, degeneracy — yet I'm not supposed to give them even a band-aid. I used to plead, bang on my desk, talk myself hoarse arguing with kids, parents, welfare, administration, social agencies. Nobody really heard me. Now I give them tea. At least, that's something."
"But you're a nurse," I said helplessly.
She showed me the Directive from the Board posted on her wall: THE SCHOOL NURSE MAY NOT TOUCH WOUNDS, GIVE MEDICATION, REMOVE FOREIGN PARTICLES FROM THE EYE…
Are we, none of us, then, allowed to touch wounds? What is the teacher's responsibility? And if it begins at all, where does it end?”

Bel Kaufmanová book Up the Down Staircase

Part V, ch. 26 (Sylvia Barrett)
Up the Down Staircase (1965)

Disease , School , Parent , Teachers

“During all these days Lao Chiu was lying on the bed suffering continual pain. The doctors and nurses did their utmost to reduce his suffering to the minimum, but they could not completely relieve it. Even the chief surgeon said once, "When we were healing him I often thought that if another person was in his place he certainly would not have stood it so long, but Lao DChiu endured everything. When I saw him grinding his teeth to suppress his groans, I felt so touched that the tears feel from my eyes." Indeed he suffered great pain for a long period. While changing the dressings even laughing gas anaesthesia could not keep him quiet. Sometimes these pains were so intense that his whole body trembled uncontrollably.”

Ba Jin (1904–2005) Chinese novelist

A Battle For Life (July 1958)

Pain , Feeling , Lying , Tear

“The thought of Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni nursing secret, unfulfilled ambitions saddened Mma Ramotswe, as did the thought of people wanting something very much indeed and not getting the thing they yearned for. When we dismiss or deny the hopes of others, she thought, we forget that they, like us, have only one chance in this life.”

Alexander McCall Smith book Tea Time for the Traditionally Built

Tea Time for the Traditionally Built, chapter 11.
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series

Life , People , Secret , Hope

“I was in my teens when our family faced a medical crisis. My grandfather, with whom I was very close, had a stroke and landed in the hospital. Sitting anxiously at his bedside, I watched nurses come and go, checking his vitals and looking at the monitors attached to his body. I remember sitting there wondering what could I do to make him feel better—to bring back the warm, thoughtful man I knew.”

Sanjay Gupta (1969) journalist, medical correspondent, neurosurgeon

Finding My Path in Life (2011)

Family , Feeling

“By default, we have created a "system" of nursing-home care for the aged in which middle-class people pay exorbitant rates to for-profit nursing-home entrepreneurs - and then when private resources are consumed and the patient qualifies as a pauper, the nursing home begins billing Medicaid. This is precisely the antithesis of social citizenship; instead of the poor being accorded the dignity associated with the middle class, equality of treatment is achieved by making the middle class undergo pauperization.”

Robert Kuttner (1943) American journalist

Source: The Economic Illusion (1984), Chapter 6, Welfare, p. 239

People , Age , Home

“Dear Mum, I know you're always there
To help and guide me with all your care,
You nursed and fed me and made me strong
To face the world and all its wrong.”

Bobby Sands (1954–1981) Irish volunteer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army

Dear Mum

World , Strong , Help

“My dear Father, Charley wrote you in his letter to his Aunt Laura thanking you for your kindness in sending us a nice Christmas present. You must not think because I have not written you myself before this that I appreciated your kindness less. I have been so troubled with pains and weakness in my arm and hand as to be almost useless at times. I think it was nursing so much when the children were sick. I was so relieved when Anna's note to Charly arrived yesterday telling Frankie was better. It would have been dreadful for Mother to have gone out west at this miserable season of the year. I was wretchedly uneasy. I do hope poor Franky will get along nicely now. It will make him much more careful about exposing himself having had this severe attack. Charley received the enclosed letters Anna sent from Sister Eliza and Toad[? ]. I was very glad to get them. It is quite refreshing to read Sister Eliza's letters. They are so cheerful and happy. I had a letter from her on Friday. This Custom House investigating committee is attracting a great deal of attention and time here. It holds its sessions at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. Mr. Broome was up on Tuesday evening until ten o'clock but was not called upon. It is very slow. He has been for three weeks passed preparing the statement for those summoned from the Public Stores. Mr. Broome sends Laura a paper to look at—The Fisk tragedy. What is Nora doing with herself this winter. She might write to me sometimes. Give much love to Mother. Ask her for her receipt for getting fat. I would like to gain some myself. It is so much nicer to grow fleshy as you advance in life than to shrivel and dry up. The children are all well and growing very fast. Lloyd has to study very hard this year. His studies are quite difficult. I suppose Charley Harris is working hard too. Mr. Broome sent you a paper with the Navy Register in this week. I received your papers and often Richard calls and gets them. I must close. Mr. Broome and children join me in love to you, Mother, Laura, Anna, Nora, Charly & all.
With much love,
Your devoted child, Mary Jane
I enclose Nancy letter which was written some time ago.”

Charles Boarman (1795–1879) US Navy Rear Admiral

Mary Jane Boarman in a Sunday letter to her father (January 21, 1872)
The people mentioned in Mary Jane's letter were her children Lloyd, Charley, and Nancy; her husband, William Henry Broome; her sisters Eliza, Anna, Laura, and Nora; her brother Frankie; and her nephew frontier physician Dr. Charles "Charley" Harris, son of her sister Susan.
John Broome and Rebecca Lloyd: Their Descendants and Related Families, 18th to 21st Centuries (2009)

Love , Life , Pain , Children

“It thus became vital to the peace of the planters' minds that the frustrations of the "crackers," "sandhillers," or "poor white trash" be diminished or placated at all costs. This involved, first and foremost, keeping the bogeyman of race ever before the nonslaveholders' eyes, for whatever hatreds the poor whites nursed against the planters, they nursed still greater ones against blacks.”

Allen C. Guelzo (1953) American historian

Source: 2010s, Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War and Reconstruction (2012), Chapter One

Peace

“O harmony! thou tenderest nurse of pain,
If that thy note's sweet magic e'er can heal
Griefs which the patient spirit oft may feel,
Oh! let me listen to thy songs again;
Till memory her fairest tints shall bring;
Hope wake with brighter eye, and listening seem
With smiles to think on some delightful dream.”

William Lisle Bowles (1762–1850) English priest, poet and critic

Music, from The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 - With Memoir, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes by George Gilfillan (1855).

Pain , Smile , Dreams , Hope

“All mammals nurse their young, and breast milk benefits a newborn infant in ways above and beyond nutrition. In fact, until 1 to 2 years of age, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the World Health Organization, the Institute of Medicine and more promote breast-feeding as optimal. Unfortunately, breast-feeding until that age is often difficult, if not impossible, because mothers have to return to work, and children go off to preschool or day care. So we often replace human milk with the milk of cows or other animals. But at a certain point, we have to acknowledge that we are the only mammals on the planet that continue to consume milk after childhood, often in great amounts. More and more evidence is surfacing, however, that milk consumption may not only be unhelpful, it might also be detrimental. … there’s very little evidence that most adults need it. There’s also very little evidence that it’s doing them much good.”

Aaron Carroll American pediatrician

"Got Milk? Might Not Be Doing You Much Good", in The New York Times (17 November 2014) http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/18/upshot/got-milk-might-not-be-doing-you-much-good.html?_r=0

Children , Health , Age , World

“As though there were a tie
And obligation to posterity.
We get them, bear them, breed, and nurse:
What has posterity done for us.
That we, lest they their rights should lose,
Should trust our necks to gripe of noose?”

John Trumbull (poet) (1750–1831) American poet

Canto ii, line 121.
McFingal (1775-1782)

“Where sits our sulky, sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.”

Robert Burns Tam o' Shanter

Source: Tam o' Shanter (1790), Line 10

“When will you disembarrass yourselves of the lymphatic ideology of that deplorable Ruskin, which I would like to cover with so much ridicule that you would never forget it? With his morbid dream of primitive and rustic life, with his nostalgia for Homeric cheeses and legendary wool-spinners, with his hatred for the machine, steam power, and electricity, that maniac of antique simplicity is like a man who, after having reached full physical maturity, still wants to sleep in his cradle and feed himself at the breast of his decrepit old nurse in order to recover his thoughtless infancy.”

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876–1944) Italian poet and editor, founder of the Futurist movement

Quoted in: Anthony L. Geist, Jose B. Monle-N, Modernism and Its Margins: Reinscribing Cultural Modernity from Spain and Latin America. Taylor & Francis, 1999, p. 57.
1910's, Futurist Speech to the English' (1910)

Life , Dreams , Sleep , Nostalgia