"I have lived and slept in the same bed with English countesses and Prussian farm women... no woman has excited passions among women more than I have."

"The martyr sacrifices themselves entirely in vain. Or rather not in vain; for they make the selfish more selfish, the lazy more lazy, the narrow narrower."

"How very little can be done under the spirit of fear."

"The world is put back by the death of every one who has to sacrifice the development of his or her peculiar gifts to conventionality."

"So never lose an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however small, for it is wonderful how often in such matters the mustard-seed germinates and roots itself."

"Women have no sympathy and my experience of women is almost as large as Europe."

"The very first requirement in a hospital is that it should do the sick no harm."

"She said the object and color in the materials around us actually have a physical effect on us, on how we feel."

"I attribute my success to this - I never gave or took any excuse."

"It may seem a strange principle to enunciate as the very first requirement in a hospital that it should do the sick no harm."

"Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better."

"I think one's feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results."