87 Inspirational Nurse Quotes That Are Funny and Uplifting

"I have restraints and Ativan, and I'm not afraid to use them."

- Deborah Barnes, RN

"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

"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

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

- Edie Falco in Nurse Jackie

"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

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

- Carrie Latet

"Nurses are the heart of healthcare."

- Donna Wilk Cardillo, MA, RN, CSP

"A nurse is compassion in scrubs."

- Lexie Saige

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

- Jodi Picoult

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

- Sharon Hudacek

"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

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

- Christine Belle

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

- Benjamin Spock

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

- Patch Adams

"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

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

- Sara Moss-Wolfe

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

- Charles Dickens

"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

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

- Estée Lauder

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

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

- Plato

"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

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

- Carolyn Jarvis

"Nursing is one of the fine arts: I had almost said 'the finest of fine arts."

- Florence Nightingale

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

- Dag Hammarskjold

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

- Barack Obama

"Every nurse was drawn to nursing because of a desire to care, to serve, or to help."

- Christina Feist-Heilmeier, RN

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

- Florence Nightingale

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

- Earl Nightingale

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

- Florence Nightingale

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

- John Maxwell

"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

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

- William Osler

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

- Mother Teresa

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

- Mahatma Gandhi

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

- Winston Churchill

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

- Florence Nightingale

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

- Marie Curie

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

- Nelson Mandela

"Whether a person is a male or female, a nurse is a nurse."

- Gary Veale, RN

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