Inspirational Nursing Quotes to Help Get You Through Your Day - NurseFuel (2024)

There’s no getting around it, nursing is a demanding job. It’s inevitable that every once in a while, you’re going to have one of those days where you stop and ask yourself “why exactly am I doing this?” These nursing quotes can help!

Trust us when we say that you are not the first nurse (or nursing student) to feel this way, nor will you be the last. While everyone may have their different methods of coping with the stress of the job, every once in a while, it’s nice to be able to have a bit of motivation that you can carry with you through your day. That’s why we’ve scoured the bookshelves, internet, and office bulletin boards of some of the busiest wards we could get our hands on and found some inspirational nursing quotes to help you remember why you chose nursing as a profession in the first place.

Nursing Quotes to remind you that others appreciate your chosen profession in a profound way

“Nurses are angels in comfortable shoes.”– Unknown

“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. No wonder we’re exhausted at the end of the day!”– Donna Wilk Cardillo

“Every nurse is an angel with a key for a healthy community! All in caring for patients – it’s part of a nursing soul!”– Aleksandar Radenovic

“Bound by paperwork, short on hands, sleep, and energy, nurses are rarely short on caring.”– Sharon Hdacek

“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

“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. A unique soul who will pass through your life for a minute and impact it for an eternity. An empowered individual whom you may meet only for a 12 hour period, but who will put you and yours above theirs.”–Anonymous

“They may forget your name but they will never forget how you made them feel.”– Maya Angelou

“When you’re a nurse you know that every day you will touch a life or a life will touch yours.”– Unknown

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

Nurse Quotes to remind you that your profession can not only be your job, but your privilege

“Nursing is rarely boring or predictable. In few other professions we are present at life’s most momentous events, from birth to death, from crisis to recovery. For those who thrive on variety and the full spectrum of human drama, every day brings a range of new situations.”– Diane Barnet, 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; for what is the having to do with dead canvas or dead marble, compared with having to do with the living body, the temple of God’s spirit? It is one of the Fine Arts: I had almost said, the finest of Fine Arts.”– Florence Nightingale

“Being a nurse isn’t about grades, it’s about being who we are. No book can teach you how to cry with a patient. No class can teach you how to tell their family that their parents have diet or are dying. No professor can teach you how to find dignity in giving someone a bed bath. A nurse is not about the pills or charting. It’s about being able to love people when they are at their weakest moments.”– Anonymous

“The nurse is temporarily the consciousness of the unconscious, the love of life for the suicidal, the leg of the amputee, the eyes of the newly blind, a means of locomotion for the infant, the knowledge and confidence of the young mother, and a voice for those too weak to speak.”– Virginia Henderson

“Nurses help people. And in doing so, we receive the unmatched satisfaction of knowing that we have made a difference to patients and their families.”– Dawn Marino, RN, BSN, HNB-BC

“The longer I’m in the profession, the more experiences shape my life, the more amazing colleagues influence me, the more I see the micro and macro power of nursing.”– Joni Watson, MBA, MSN, RN, OCN

“Sometimes I inspire my patients. More often, they inspire me.”– unknown

“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

“Our job as nurses is to cushion the sorrow and celebrate the joy, everyday, while we are “just doing our job.”– Christine Belle

Nurse Quotes that will make you smile when you need it most

“Nursing school is a lot like giving birth. Once it’s over, you tend to forget just how painful the process really was.”– Unknown

“Nurses are I.V. Leaguers”–Unknown

“Multiple traumas, a unit full of ventilators, and patients trying to die on me all day…I’m sorry what were you saying about your busy day with the stapler?– Unknown

“Nurses – one of the few blessings of being ill.”– Sara Moss-Wolfe

“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

“It may seem a strange principle to enunciate as the very first requirement in a hospital that it should do the sick no harm”– Florence Nightingale

We hope these inspirational nursing quotes will help provide the Nurse Fuel to get you through your day. If you still need more motivation, please check out these motivational quotes for nursing students. If you need a laugh, make sure to stop by our nursing entertainment center.