Today, the 12th of May, is International Nurses Day.
A day to show our gratitude for the kindness and help we have received when we have been hurt or sick.
A day for respect and for reminding us how much nurses have helped and continue to help us and the people we love.
So in today’s post I want to share 90 of the most heartfelt, thankful and inspirational Nurses Day quotes.
I hope you’ll find something here to help you express your own gratitude.
And if you’re a nurse, something that will make you feel more inspired and appreciated.
Inspirational Nurses Day Quotes
“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
“Let us never consider ourselves finished, nurses. We must be learning all of our lives.”
– Florence Nightingale
“Every nurse was drawn to nursing because of a desire to care, to serve, or to help.”
– Christina Feist-Heilmeier
“The character of the nurse is as important as the knowledge she possesses.”
– Carolyn Jarvis
“What you do makes a difference. And you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”
– Jane Goodall
“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.”
– William Shakespeare
“Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a battle.”
– Plato
“I’m not telling you it’s going to be easy, I’m telling you it’s going to be worth it.”
– Art Williams
“You treat a disease: you win, you lose. You treat a person, I guarantee you win…no matter the outcome.”
– Robin Williams (from the movie Patch Adams)
“Never give up on anybody. Miracles happen every day.”
– H. Jackson Brown Jr.
“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
“It is not how much you do, but how much love you put into doing.”
– Mother Teresa
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
“I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse.”
– Florence Nightingale
“Where the needs of the world and your talents cross, there lies your vocation.”
– Aristotle
“Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires, a touch that never hurts.”
– Charles Dickens
“The very first requirement in a hospital is that it should do the sick no harm.”
– Florence Nightingale
“Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.”
– Mother Teresa
“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.”
– Meredith Grey (from the TV-show Grey’s Anatomy)
“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
“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
Nurses Day Quotes with Heartfelt Appreciation and Respect
“Our fingerprints don’t fade from the lives we touch.”
– Judy Blume
“To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The doctors may be mapping out the war games, but it is the nurses who make the conflict bearable.”
– Jodi Picoult
“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
“Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart.”
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“Being a nurse means to hold all your own tears and start drawing smiles on people’s faces.”
– Dana Basem
“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
“It would not be possible to praise nurses too highly.”
– Stephen Ambrose
“Nurses dispense comfort, compassion, and caring without even a prescription.”
– Val Saintsbury
“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 biggest strength and fatal flaw.”
– Dr. Jean Watson
“A nurse will always give us hope, an angel with a stethoscope.”
– Carrie Latet
“Constant attention by a good nurse may be just as important as a major operation by a surgeon.”
– Dag Hammarskjold
“Remember, nurses are like icebergs. At any one time, you are only seeing what they are actually doing.”
– Ian Miller
“Nurses are the hospitality of the hospital.”
– Carrie Latet
“Bound by paperwork, short on hands, sleep, and energy…nurses are rarely short on caring.”
– Sharon Hudacek
“Nurses – one of the few blessings of being ill.”
– Sara Moss-Wolfe
“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
“Nursing is one of the fine arts: I had almost said ‘the finest of fine arts.’”
– Florence Nightingale
“When eating fruit, remember the one who planted the tree.”
– Vietnamese Proverb
“For each new morning with its light, For rest and shelter of the night, For health and food, for love and friends, For everything Thy goodness sends.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“If you want to find happiness, find gratitude.”
– Steve Maraboli
“Every blessing ignored becomes a curse.”
– Paulo Coelho
“Find the good and praise it.”
– Alex Haley
“Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.”
– Brian Tracy
“The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.”
– Oscar Wilde
Funny Nurses Day Quotes
“Nursing would be a dream job if there were no doctors.”
– Gerhard Kocher
“Just so you know, doctors are here to diagnose, not heal. We heal.”
– Edie Falco (from the TV-show Nurse Jackie)
“Not all angels have wings… some have scrubs.”
– Unknown
“May your scrubs be comfy, your coffee be strong, and your Monday be short.”
– Unknown
“Always thank your nurse! Sometimes they’re the only one between you and a hearse.”
– Warren Beatty
“Remember, I’m a nurse. You’re going to have to say a lot to gross me out.”
– Unknown
“I’m a nurse. What’s your superpower?”
– Unknown
“Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.”
– Mark Twain
“Shift change is my favorite time of day.”
– Unknown
“Nurse: the first person you see after saying, ‘Hold my beer and watch this!’”
– Unknown
“I love being a nurse, but I mostly love wearing scrubs. They’re basically professional pajamas.”
– Unknown
“I came, I cared, I charted.”
– Unknown
“Nurses can’t fix stupid… but we can sedate it.”
– Unknown
“Treat the patient as a whole, not just the hole in the patient.”
– Unknown
“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
Happy Nurses Day Quotes and Sayings
“Save one life, you’re a hero. Save a hundred lives, you’re a nurse.”
– Unknown
“Caring is the essence of nursing.”
– Jean Watson
“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
“Sometimes I inspire my patients; more often, they inspire me.”
– Unknown
“What angels are to the sad, nurses are to the sick.”
– Amit Kalantri
“Be the nurse you would want as a patient.”
– Unknown
“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”
– John F. Kennedy
“You cannot do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Never let the things you want make you forget the things you have.”
– Unknown
“Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgiving, turn routine jobs into joy and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.”
– William Arthur Ward
“A moment of gratitude makes a difference in your attitude.”
– Bruce Wilkinson
“The real gift of gratitude is that the more grateful you are, the more present you become.”
– Robert Holden
“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.”
– Cicero
“Showing gratitude is one of the simplest yet most powerful things humans can do for each other.”
– Randy Pausch
“Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.”
– Aesop
“Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.”
– Voltaire
Short Nurses Day Quotes on Kindness and Gratitude in Life
“A nurse is compassion in scrubs.”
– Lexie Saige
“I’m a nurse because miracle worker isn’t an official title.”
– Unknown
“Nurses are the heart of healthcare.”
– Donna Wilk Cardillo
“For the sick, it is important to have the best.”
– Florence Nightingale
“From caring comes courage.”
– Lao Tzu
“Be the nurse you want to work with.”
– Unknown
“No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted.”
– Aesop
“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.”
– Robert Brault
“It is not enough to be compassionate – you must act.”
– The Dalai Lama
“I never dreamed about success – I worked for it.”
– Estée Lauder
“Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind.”
– Lionel Hampton
“Nurses are angels in comfortable shoes.”
– Unknown
Want more uplifting inspiration for your spring? Then check out these uplifting May quotes, the beautiful May quotes here and also this one with positive spring quotes and this post with short spring quotes.