100+ Inspirational Nurse Appreciation Quotes to Celebrate Healthcare Heroes

"As a nurse we have the opportunity to heal the mind, soul, heart, and body of our patients. They may forget your name, but they will never forget how you made them feel."

- Maya Angelou

"Nursing 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 Nightingale

"They may forget your name, but they will never forget how you made them feel."

- Maya Angelou

"Nurses are the heart of healthcare."

- Donna Wilk Cardillo, MA, RN, CSP

"Most of all, you need moral courage because nursing is about the pursuit of justice. It requires you to stand up to bullies, to do things that are right but difficult, and to speak your mind even when you are afraid. I wasn’t strong like this when I started out. Nursing made me strong."

- Tilda Shalof

"Nurses are always there, you care for us from the earliest years. You look after us in our happiest and saddest times. And for many, you look after us and our families at the end of our lives. Your dedication and professionalism are awe-inspiring."

- Duchess Kate Middleton

"To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Caring is the essence of nursing."

- Jean Watson

"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

"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, RN

"You treat a disease: You win, you lose. You treat a person, I guarantee you win—no matter the outcome."

- Hunter Doherty “Patch” Adams

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

- Leo Buscaglia

"You treat a disease, you win, you lose. You treat a person, I’ll guarantee you’ll win."

- Patch Adams

"To do what nobody else will do, a way that nobody else can do, in spite of all we go through — that is what it means to be a nurse."

- Rawsi Williams

"As a nurse we have the opportunity to heal the mind, soul, heart, and body of our patients. They may forget your name but they will never forget how you made them feel."

- Maya Angelou

"It is not how much you do, but how much love you put in the doing."

- Mother Teresa

"Nothing will work unless you do."

- Maya Angelou

"I attribute my success to this; I never gave nor took any excuse."

- Florence Nightingale

"To do what nobody else will do, in a way that nobody else can, in spite of all we go through, is to be a nurse."

- Rawsi Williams

"It would not be possible to praise nurses too highly."

- Stephen Ambrose

"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, MA, RN, CSP

"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

"We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Florence Nightingale

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

- Dana Basem

"Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny."

- Mahatma Ghandi

"Nurses are always there. You care for us from the earliest years. You look after us in our happiest and saddest times. And for many, you look after us and our families at the end of our lives. Your dedication and professionalism are awe-inspiring."

- Duchess Kate Middleton

"The people who are on the front lines every day in hospitals, nurses, the people who are running clinics, the people who are taking care of your children, those are the people who are the lovers of the world, are the good of the world."

- Eve Ensler

"A nurse is compassion in scrubs."

- Lexie Saige

"A nurse is compassion in scrubs"

- Lexie Saige

"To do what nobody else will do, in a way that nobody else can do, in spite of all we go through…that is what it is to be a nurse."

- Rawsi Williams, RN

"Nursing 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 Nightingale

"The most important practical lesson that can be given to nurses is to teach them what to observe."

- Florence Nightingale

"Nursing is a progressive art such that to stand still is to go backwards."

- Florence Nightingale

"The very first requirement in a hospital is that it should do the sick no harm."

- Florence Nightingale

"Let us never consider ourselves finished nurses....we must be learning all of our lives."

- Florence Nightingale

"Nursing 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 Nightingale

"To do what nobody else will do, a way that nobody else can do, in spite of all we go through; is to be a nurse."

- Rawsi Williams

"When a person decides to become a nurse, they make the most important decision of their lives. They choose to dedicate themselves to the care of others."

- Margaret Harvey

"The doctors may be mapping out the war games, but it is the nurses who make the conflict bearable."

- Jodi Picoult

"A nurse will always give us hope, an angel with a stethoscope."

- Carrie Latet

"Although your educational journey may be difficult at times, you will reap the reward of utmost satisfaction when holding your nursing diploma for the first time—and nothing will ever compare to the fulfillment that improving and saving the lives of others will bring!"

- Mikhail Shneyder

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."

- Nelson Mandela

"Constant attention by a good nurse may be just as important as a major operation by a surgeon."

- Dag Hammarskjold

"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 Bell

"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 ‘the finest of fine arts.’"

- Florence Nightingale

"America’s nurses are the beating heart of our medical system."

- Barack Obama

"Nurses are a unique kind. They have this insatiable need to care for others, which is both their greatest strength and fatal flaw."

- Jean Watson

"Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do."

- Benjamin Spock

"As a nurse, we have the opportunity to heal the mind, soul, heart, and body of our patients. They may forget your name, but they will never forget how you made them feel."

- Maya Angelou

"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

"So never lose an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however small, for it is wonderful how often in such matters the mustard-seed germinates and roots itself."

- Florence Nightingale

"Happiness … consists of giving, and in serving others."

- Henry Drummond

"Confidence is not ‘they will like me,’ confidence is “I’ll be fine if they don’t.” Successful people have fear, successful people have doubts, and successful people have worries. They just don’t let these feelings stop them."

- T. Harv Eker

"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

"It is not how much you do, but how much love you put into doing."

- Mother Teresa

"No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted."

- Aesop

"It is not enough to be compassionate—you must act."

- 14th Dalai Lama

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

- Sharon Hudacek

"The world gives you so much pain and here you are, making gold out of it – there is nothing purer than that."

- Rupi Kaur

"Our job as nurses is to cushion the sorrow and celebrate the job, every day, while we are ‘just doing our jobs.”"

- Christine Belle

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

- Earl Nightingale

"Hardships often prepare people for an extraordinary destiny."

- C.S. Lewis

"I’m not telling you it’s going to be easy, I’m telling you it’s going to be worth it."

- Art Williams

"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

"Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere."

- Chinese Proverb

"The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"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

"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

"Nurses are a unique kind. They have this insatiable need to care for others, which is both their biggest strength and fatal flaw."

- Dr. Jean Watson

"Nurses are the hospitality of the hospital."

- Carrie Latet

"Rejoice in your work; never lose sight of the nursing leader you are now and the nursing leader you will become."

- Sue Fitzsimons

"Our fingerprints don’t fade from the lives we touch."

- Judy Blume

"If we’re growing, we’re always going to be out of our comfort zone."

- John Maxwell

"This is the state of nursing as a career distilled down into one statement. What other career paths is it fully accepted to ask, "Why do you still do this? Despite everything?""

- ProctologistRN

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

- Steve Jobs

"Just so you know, doctors are here to diagnose, not heal. We heal."

- Edie Falco in Nurse Jackie

"Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier."

- Mother Teresa

"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

"I never dreamed about success—I worked for it."

- Estée Lauder

"Wherever the art of Medicine is loved, there is also a love of Humanity."

- Hippocrates

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

- Vaughn J. Featherstone

"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."

- Grace Lichtenstein

"To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Anybody who fights for human rights or to make this world a better place. Nurses, doctors, teachers: these are the people who deserve the credit these days."

- George Michael

"You treat a disease: you win, you lose. You treat a person, I guarantee you win...no matter the outcome."

- Robin Williams, Patch Adams

"Never give up on anybody. Miracles happen every day."

- H. Jackson Brown Jr.

"Nursing 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 Nightingale

"Funny we have to be asked “why are you still a nurse? Despite everything?” I don’t think my parents have ever been asked “why are you still engineers? You know, despite it all.”"

- AG_Squared

"We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated."

- Maya Angelou

"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

"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

"What you do makes a difference. And you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make."

- Jane Goodall

"From caring comes courage."

- Lao Tzu

"Remember, nurses are like icebergs. At any one time, you are only seeing what they are actually doing."

- Ian Miller

"Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts."

- Winston Churchill

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle."

- Plato

"The character of the nurse is as important as the knowledge she possesses."

- Carolyn Jarvis

"Happiness…consists of giving, and in serving others."

- Henry Drummond

"If you wait to do everything until you’re sure it’s right, you’ll probably never do much of anything."

- Win Borden

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

- Florence Nightingale

"Knowing is better than wondering, waking is better than sleeping, and even the biggest failure, even the worst, beats the hell out of never trying."

- Grey’s Anatomy

"What angels are to the sad, nurses are to the sick."

- Amit Kalantri

"I think one’s feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results."

- Florence Nightingale

"Our job as nurses is to cushion the sorrow and celebrate the job, every day, while we are ‘just doing our jobs.’"

- Christine Belle

"Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence."

- Henry David Thoreau

"The world gives you so much pain and here you are, making gold out of it—there is nothing purer than that."

- Rupi Kaur

"There are only four kinds of people in the world. Those who have been caregivers. Those who are currently caregivers. Those who will be caregivers, and those who will need a caregiver."

- Rosalynn Carter

"I'm very passionate about not being homeless or starving to death, and being employed as a nurse has been the most effective way to avoid both of those things!"

- MedicRiah

"Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings."

- Salvador Dali

"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

"Nurses—one of the few blessings of being ill."

- Sara Moss-Wolfe

"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

"I am among those who think that science has great beauty."

- Marie Curie

"How can anybody hate nurses? Nobody hates nurses. The only time you hate a nurse is when they’re giving you an enema."

- Warren Beatty

"Success comes to those who are too busy to look for it."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world, indeed it is the only thing that ever has."

- Margaret Mead

"A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself."

- Joseph Campbell

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

- Dr. Seuss

"Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires, a touch that never hurts."

- Charles Dickens

"My reply? “Great point—I’ve been considering opening a sandwich shop throughout the entirety of the pandemic. Your gentle disdain of my career choice and complete lack of appreciation is the shove I needed to leave the field altogether and go live my dream. P.S. Kindly fuck off asking me to do homework instead of any ACTUAL recognition”."

- Still-Inevitable9368

"It’s okay to learn from every experience, and it’s okay to make mistakes."

- Louise Hay

"Panic plays no part in the training of a nurse."

- Elizabeth Kenny

"The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away."

- Pablo Picasso

"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life."

- Confucius

"I’ll put on scrubs any day before I work in retail, fast food, or the restaurant industry again."

- sisterfister69hitler

"Nurses dispense comfort, compassion, and caring without even a prescription."

"The definition of a nurse: To go above and beyond the call of duty. The first to work and the last to leave. The heart and soul of caring. who will pass through your life for a minute and impact it for an eternity. An empowered individual whom you may meet for only a 12-hour period, but who will put you and yours above theirs."

"When you’re a nurse, you know that every day you will touch a life or a life will touch yours."

- Unknown

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

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

"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."

- Unknown

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

- Unknown

"A nurse is a person who will listen, understand, and care for you when you need it the most."

- Unknown

"Not all angels have wings…some have scrubs."

- Unknown

"No matter how difficult the days may get, don’t forget the reason you became a nurse."

"When you feel like quitting, remember why you started."

"I’m a nurse because ‘miracle worker’ isn’t an official title."

"I’m a nurse. What’s your superpower?"

"Nurses may not be angels, but they are the next best thing."

- Unknown

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

"Be the nurse you would want as a patient."

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

"A nurse is one who opens the eyes of a newborn and 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."

- Unknown

"Yes, I am a nurse. No, I don’t want to look at it."

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

- Unknown

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

- Unknown

"When you are a nurse, you know that every day you will touch a life or a life will touch yours."

"Hand sanitizer has started to become your best friend."

"Don’t mess with me—I get paid to stab people with sharp objects."

"No, RN does not stand for ‘Refreshments and Narcotics.’"

- Unknown

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

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

- Unknown

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

"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."

- Unknown

"Nursing school. One syllabus at a time. One class at a time. One exam at a time. One clinical at a time. Keep going…"

- Unknown

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

- Unknown

"Not all angels have wings… some have scrubs."

- Unknown

"The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow; do good anyway!"

- Unknown

"You didn’t even know me, yet you treated me like family…I’ll never forget that. Thank you."

- Unknown

"Nurse: just another word to describe a person strong enough to tolerate everything and soft enough to understand everyone."

"The definition of a nurse: To go above and beyond the call of duty. The first to work and the last to leave. The heart and soul of caring. Who will pass through your life for a minute and impact it for an eternity? An empowered individual whom you may meet for only a 12-hour period, but who will put you and yours above theirs."

- Unknown

"Not all angels have wings … some have scrubs."