Wise and humane management of the patient is the best safeguard against infection.
Florence NightingaleRead
The family uses people, not for what they are, nor for what they are intended to be, but for what it wants them for- its own uses. It thinks of them not as what God has made them, but as the something which it has arranged that they shall be.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes how families often impose their own desires and expectations onto members instead of accepting them as individuals.
Florence Nightingale's quote highlights the tendency of families to utilize their members according to the family's own needs rather than recognizing and valuing them for who they truly are or what they could become. This speaks to the complex dynamics within family relationships, where individual identities may be overshadowed by the collective expectations of the family unit.
Themes
FamilyExpectationsIdentityRelationshipsIndividuality
In practice
Example use cases
Discussing during a family therapy session about individual needs and expectations.
More from Florence Nightingale
All quotes βFor us who Nurse, our Nursing is a thing, which, unless in it we are making progress every year, every month, every week, take my word for it we are going back. The more experience we gain, the more progress we can make.
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Everything you do in a patient's room, after he is 'put up' for the night, increases tenfold the risk of his having a bad night. But, if you rouse him up after he has fallen asleep, you do not risk - you secure him a bad night.
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If I could give you information of my life it would be to show how a woman of very ordinary ability has been led by God in strange and unaccustomed paths to do in His service what He has done in her. And if I could tell you all, you would see how God has done all, and I nothing. I have worked hard, very hard, that is all; and I have never refused God anything.
Florence NightingaleRead
The true foundation of theology is to ascertain the character of God. It is by the aid of Statistics that law in the social sphere can be ascertained and codified, and certain aspects of the character of God thereby revealed. The study of statistics is thus a religious service.
Florence NightingaleRead
I am of certain convinced that the greatest heroes are those who do their duty in the daily grind of domestic affairs whilst the world whirls as a maddening dreidel.
Florence NightingaleRead
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