Share These 100 Uplifting Nurse Quotes To Show Appreciation During National Nurses Week and Beyond

Nurses are some of the most amazing, caring people you’ll ever meet, and now, more than ever, hard-working nurses deserve a round of applause. And from May 6 to May 12, nurses are celebrated during National Nurses Week. Show your support and appreciation by sharing nurse quotes in their honor.

From funny nurse quotes to inspirational nurse quotes, this big list of the best nursing quotes celebrates our everyday heroes and encourages them to keep pushing forward.

Send these encouraging quotes about nurses to any nurse you may know, if you want to lift his or her spirits during a tough week at work, or just because. And if you don't know a nurse personally, sharing one of these nurse quotes is a way to show your appreciation for all the people who are out there working long shifts, with far too few resources, to care for patients each and every day.

Here are 100 of the best nurse quotes that honor our frontline heroes.

100 Nurse Quotes

1. “Constant attention by a good nurse may be just as important as a major operation by a surgeon.” —Dag Hammarskjold

2. “America’s nurses are the beating heart of our medical system.” — Barack Obama

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

4. “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

5. “Never give up on anybody. Miracles happen every day.” – H. Jackson Brown Jr.

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

7. “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

8. “Where there is love there is life.” — Mahatma Gandhi

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9.“And what nursing has to do in either case is to put the patient in the best condition for nature to act upon him.” — Florence Nightingale

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

11. “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” — Steve Jobs

12. "Caring about others, running the risk of feeling, and leaving an impact on people, brings happiness." ― Harold Kushner

13. “Nurses dispense comfort, compassion, and caring without even a prescription.” — Val Saintsbury

14. "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” — Winston Churchill

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

16. “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

17. “From caring comes courage.” — Lao Tzu

18. “A nurse is compassion in scrubs.” – Lexie Saige

19. “Where the needs of the world and your talents cross, there lies your vocation” — Aristotle

20. “Kindness can transform someone's dark moment with a blaze of light. You'll never know how much your caring matters. Make a difference for another today.” ― Amy Leigh Mercree

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

22. “Nursing 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

23. “For the sick, it is important to have the best.” — Florence Nightingale

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

25. “Nurses are the heart of healthcare.” — Donna Wilk Cardillo

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26. “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.” — Rosalyn Carter

27. “Some days there won’t be a song in your heart. Sing anyway.” — Emory Austin

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

29. “Our fingerprints don’t fade from the lives we touch.” – Judy Blume

30. "A smile is the light in your window that tells others that there is a caring, sharing person inside." ― Denis Waitley

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31. "Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires, a touch that never hurts.” — Charles Dickens

32. “It is not enough to be compassionate— you must act.” — The Dalai Lama

33. “Kind words can be short and easy to speak but their echoes are truly endless.” — Mother Teresa

34. “We won't always know whose lives we touched and made better for our having cared, because actions can sometimes have unforeseen ramifications. What's important is that you do care and you act.” — Charlotte Lunsford

35. Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." — Theodore Roosevelt

36. “Worrying does not empty tomorrow of its troubles; it empties today of its strengths.” — Corrie Ten Boom

37. “Save one life and you’re a hero, save one hundred lives and you’re a nurse.” — Unknown

38. “Remember: Nurses are like icebergs. At any one time, you are only seeing what they are actually doing.” — Ian Miller

39. “As nurses we know suffering. We are full aware of how precious each moment of life is.” – Patricia Bratianu

40. “Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.” — Mother Teresa

41. “The character of a nurse is just as important as the knowledge she possesses.” — Carolyn Jarvis

42. “A nurse will always give us hope—an angel with a stethoscope.” — Terri Guillemets

43. “What you do makes a difference. And you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” – Jane Goodall

44. “Caring is the essence of nursing.” — Jean Watson

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

46. "Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does." — William James

47. “Our job as nurses is to cushion the sorrow and celebrate the joy, every day, while we are ‘just doing our jobs.’” — Christine Belle

48. "Care is a state in which something does matter; it is the source of human tenderness." ― Rollo May

49.“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

50. “Whether a person is male or female, a nurse is a nurse.” — Gary Veale

51. “Caregiving often calls us to lean into love we didn’t know possible.” ― Tia Walker

52. “Nursing is great for so many reasons, but there is one reason that means more than any poll results, amount of money, or job security: Nurses make a difference.” — Brittany Wilson,

53. “It is not how much you do, but how much love you put in the doing.” — Mother Teresa

54. "Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible." — St. Francis of Assisi

55. “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

56. “One person caring about another represents life's greatest value.” — Jim Rohn

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

58. “Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” — Mark Twain

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

60. “Be determined to handle any challenge in a way that will make you grow.” — Les Brown

61. “Diagnosis is not the end, but the beginning of practice.” — Martin H. Fischer

62. “Bound by paperwork, short on hands, sleep, and energy…nurses are rarely short on caring.” — Sharon Hudacek

63. “Nurses are the hospitality of the hospital.” – Carrie Latet

64. “You really can change the world if you care enough.” — Marian Wright Edelman

65. “Nurses: one of the few blessings of being ill.” — Sara Moss-Wolfe

66. “The simple act of caring is heroic.” — Edward Albert

67. “Every nurse was drawn to nursing because of a desire to care, to serve, or to help.” — Christina Feist-Heilmeier

68. "The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” — Shakespeare

69. “I feel the capacity to care is the thing which gives life its deepest significance.” — Pablo Casals

70. “Always thank your nurse! Sometimes they’re the only one between you and a hearse.” — Warren Beaty

71. “Nursing is not for the faint of heart nor the empty of heart.” – Unknown

72. “Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” — Dale Carnegie

73. “I attribute my success to this—I never gave or took any excuse.” — Florence Nightingale

74. “Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestation of strength and resolution.” — Kahlil Gibran

75. “It would not be possible to praise nurses too highly.” — Stephen Ambrose

76. “Without a sense of caring, there can be no sense of community.” — Anthony J. D'Angelo

77. “You treat a disease; you win, you lose. You treat a person, I guarantee you win—no matter the outcome.” – Patch Adams

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

79. “I may be compelled to face danger, but never fear it, and while our soldiers can stand and fight, I can stand and feed and nurse them.” — Clara Barton

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

81. “Nursing is not for everyone. It takes a very strong, intelligent, and compassionate person to take on the ills of the world with passion and purpose and work to maintain the health and well-being of the planet.” — Donna Wilk Cardillo

82. "One person with passion is better than forty people merely interested." — E.M. Forster

83. “Every nurse is an angel with a key for healthy community! All in caring for patients is part of nursing soul!” — Alexsandar Radunovic

84. “Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.” – Booker T. Washington

85. "To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

86. “Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a Battle.” — Plato

87. "Nurses are angels in comfortable shoes.” — Unknown

88. “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

89. “Kindness is universal. Sometimes being kind allows others to see the goodness in humanity through you. Always be kinder than necessary.” ― Germany Kent

90. “Doing a little bit of good here and there makes everything a little bit better, everywhere.” ― Richie Norton

91. “I’m not telling you it’s going to be easy. I’m telling you it’s going to be worth it.” — Art Williams

92. “You can either close your eyes to the pain in life or you can open them, and ease the pain for everyone else.” ― Anthony T. Hincks

93. “My caregiver mantra is to remember: The only control you have is over the changes you choose to make.” — Nancy L. Kriseman

94. “When you are a nurse, you know that every day you will touch a life or a life will touch yours.” — Unknown

95. “By cultivating the beautiful we scatter the seeds of heavenly flowers, as by doing good we cultivate those that belong to humanity.” — Robert A. Heinlein

96. “Nurses serve their patients in the most important capacities. We know that they serve as our first lines of communication when something goes wrong or when we are concerned about health.” — Lois Capps

97. “There is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in ourselves.” — Michel de Montaigne

98. “Because nurses have the most direct patient care, they have much influence on serious treatment decisions. It is a very high-stakes job.” — Judy Evans

99. “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

100. “I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything; but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.” — E.E.Hale

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