55 Nursing Quotes To Inspire, Motivate, And Remind You Why You Chose To Become A Nurse

It takes a special person to become a nurse. The recent Covid-19 pandemic has proven this to be true. Nursing is a career in which you will face many challenges, but it can also be one of the most rewarding things you’ll ever experience.

In an article by BusinessInsider, nurses discuss the most difficult aspects of the job. Death, long shifts, and lack of respect top the list of struggles many nurses face. The pressure of the role alone can be enough to weigh heavily on a person.

The challenges of this career path start long before you become an official Registered Nurse: they start day one of nursing school. Anyone who has been in nursing school for even a brief period of time knows it is a long, arduous journey to graduation, and then to landing that dream job.

It doesn’t matter if you’re starting your first hour of studying or your first 12 hour shift, all nurses and nursing students could use some motivation and a little laughter. That little boost to get them through their day. Here are some inspirational nursing quotes to help get the job done.

1 “You’re off to great places, today is your day, your mountain is waiting, so get on your way.” – Dr. Suess

2. “The hardest part is getting started.” – Unknown

3. “Fail early..fail often..fail forward” – Unknown

4. “Growth starts where your comfort zone ends.” – Unknown

6. “Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” – Malcolm X

7. “I’m not telling you it’s going to be easy, I’m telling you it’s going to be worth it.” – Art Williams

8. “Be the nurse you want to work with.” – Unknown

9. “Remember, nurses are like icebergs. At any one time, you are only seeing what they are actually doing.” – Ian Miller.

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

12. “You don’t build a house without its foundation. You don’t build a hospital without its Nurses.” – Unknown

13. “Be nice to your nurse. They’re the person who chooses your catheter size.” – Unknown

14. “Every nurse has a best friend, Pam: LorazePAM, DiazePAM, and ClonazePAM.” – Unknown

15. “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

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

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

19. “A wild pandemic isn’t what I had in mind for the year of the nurse.” – Unknown

20. “Nursing would be a dream job if there were no doctors.” – Gerhard Kocher

21. “Nursing is not a career…it’s a post-apocalyptic survival skill.” – Unknown

22. “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

23. “The character of the nurse is as important as the knowledge she possesses.”– Carolyn Jarvis

24. “A nurse will always give us hope, an angel with a stethoscope.” – Carrie Latet

26. “Nursing is most definitely like a box of chocolates..you never know what you’re going to get.” – Unknown

27. “Let us never consider ourselves finished, nurses. We must be learning all of our lives.” – Florence Nightingale

28. “You treat a disease: you win, you lose. You treat a person, I guarantee you win.. no matter the outcome.” – Robin Williams

29. “Shift change is my favorite time of day.” – Unknown

30. “You know you are a big deal when the government thinks you are essential.” – Unknown

31. “Not all angels have wings … Some have scrubs and a stethoscope.” – Unknown

32. “Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway” – Earl Nightingale

33. “Save one person, you’re a hero. Save hundreds, you’re a nurse.” – Unknown

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

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

37. “Nurses make excellent road trip companions…they can hold their pee for hours.” – Unknown

38. “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

39. “Nurse: just another word to describe a person strong enough to tolerate anything and soft enough to understand anyone.” – Unknown

40. “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

41. “Treat every patient like they are family.” – Unknown

42. “Nursing..the only profession that cares about bowel movement.” – Unknown

43. “It is not how much you do, but how much love you put into doing”. – Mother Teresa

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

45. “Doctors put a wall up between themselves and their patients; nurses broke it down.” – Jodi Picoult

47. “Nurses are angels in comfortable shoes.” – Unknown

48. “Nurses: one of the few blessings of being ill.” -Unknown

49. “Nurses are the unsung heroes of our society.” – Unknown

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

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

52. “Care for one…that’s love. Care for hundreds…that’s nursing.” – Unknown

53. “Nurses may not be angels, but they are the next best thing!” – Unknown

54. “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” – Mahatma Gandhi

55. “The doctors may be mapping out the war games, but it is the nurses who make the conflict bearable.” – Jodi Picoult