Clarissa Harlowe Barton was a pioneering American nurse who founded the American Red Cross. She was a hospital nurse in the American Civil War, a teacher, and a patent clerk. Since nursing education was not then very formalized and she did not attend nursing school, she provided self-taught nursing care. Barton is noteworthy for doing humanitarian work and civil rights advocacy at a time before women had the right to vote. She was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1973. These Clara Barton quotes will motivate you.
Best Clara Barton Quotes
- “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
- “You must never so much think as whether you like it or not, whether it is bearable or not; you must never think of anything except the need, and how to meet it.” ~ Clara Barton
- “It irritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defy the tyranny of precedent. I cannot afford the luxury of a closed mind.” ~ Clara Barton
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“The door that nobody else will go in at, seems always to swing open widely for me.” ~ Clara Barton
- “I may sometimes be willing to teach for nothing, but if paid at all, I shall never do a man’s work for less than a man’s pay.” ~ Clara Barton
- “I have an almost complete disregard of precedent, and a faith in the possibility of something better. It irritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defy the tyranny of precedent. I go for anything new that might improve the past.” ~ Clara Barton
- “The Red Cross in its nature, it aims and purposes, and consequently, its methods, is unlike any other organization in the country. It is an organization of physical action, of instantaneous action, at the spur of the moment; it cannot await the ordinary deliberation of organized bodies if it would be of use to suffering humanity,[ellipsis in original] it has by its nature a field of its own.” ~ Clara Barton
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“Offering a hand up is not a hand-out.” ~ Clara Barton
- “If I were to speak of war, it would not be to show you the glories of conquering armies but the mischief and misery they strew in their tracks; and how, while they marched on with tread of iron and plumes proudly tossing in the breeze, some one must follow closely in their steps, crouching to the earth, toiling in the rain and darkness, shelterless themselves, with no thought of pride or glory, fame or praise, or reward; hearts breaking with pity, faces bathed in tears and hands in blood. This is the side which history never shows.” ~ Clara Barton
- “This conflict is one thing I’ve been waiting for. I’m well and strong and young – young enough to go to the front. If I can’t be a soldier, I’ll help soldiers.” ~ Clara Barton
- “Although its growth may seem to have been slow, it is to be remembered that it is not a shrub, or plant, to shoot up in the summerand wither in the frosts. The Red Cross is a part of us–it has come to stay–and like the sturdy oak, its spreading branches shall yet encompass and shelter the relief of the nation.” ~ Clara Barton
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“Everybody’s business is nobody’s business, and nobody’s business is my business.” ~ Clara Barton
- “While soldiers can stand and fight.I can fight and feed them” ~ Clara Barton
- “People should not say that this or that is not worth learning, giving as their reason that it will not be put to use. They can no more know what information they will need in the future than they will know the weather two hundred years from today.” ~ Clara Barton
- “I have never worked for fame or praise, and shall not feel their loss as I otherwise would. I have never for a moment lost sight of the humble life I was born to, its small environments, and the consequently little right I had to expect much of myself, and shall have the less to censure, or upbraid myself with for the failures I must see myself make.” ~ Clara Barton
- “What could I do but go with them Civil War soldiers, or work for them and my country? The patriot blood of my father was warm in my veins.” ~ Clara Barton
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“The surest test of discipline is its absence.” ~ Clara Barton
- “I went to the Senate, accomplished nothing as usual.” ~ Clara Barton
- “A ball had passed between my body and the right arm which supported him, cutting through the sleeve and passing through his chest from shoulder to shoulder. There was no more to be done for him and I left him to his rest. I have never mended that hole in my sleeve.” ~ Clara Barton
- “If woman alone had suffered under these mistaken traditions [of women’s subordination], if she could have borne the evil by herself, it would have been less pitiful, but her brother man, in the laws he created and ignorantly worshipped, has suffered with her. He has lost her highest help; he has crippled the intelligence he needed; he has belittled the very source of his own being and dwarfed the image of his Maker.” ~ Clara Barton
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“I founded the American Red Cross.” ~ Clara Barton
- “The patriot blood of my father was warm in my veins.” ~ Clara Barton
- “My business is stanching blood and feeding fainting men; my post the open field between the bullet and the hospital. I sometimes discuss the application of a compress or a wisp of hay under a broken limb, but not the bearing and merits of a political movement. I make gruel–not speeches; I write letters home for wounded soldiers, not political addresses.” ~ Clara Barton
- “I don’t know how long it has been since my ear has been free from the roll of a drum. It is the music I sleep by, and I love it…. I shall remain here while anyone remains, and do whatever comes to my hand. 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
- “An institution or reform movement that is not selfish, must originate in the recognition of some evil that is adding to the sum of human suffering, or diminishing the sum of happiness.” ~ Clara Barton
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“I wonder if a soldier ever does mend a bullet hole in his coat?” ~ Clara Barton
- “My business is staunching blood, and feeding fainting men.” ~ Clara Barton
- “Long ago I added to the true old adage of “What is everybody’s business is nobody’s business,” another clause which, I think, morethan any other principle has served to influence my actions in life. That is, What is nobody’s business is my business.” ~ Clara Barton Quotes
- “I was only one woman alone, and had no power to move to action full-fed, sleek- coated, ease-loving, pleasure-seeking, well-paid,and well-placed countrymen in this war- trampled, dead, old land, each one afraid that he should be called upon to do something.” ~ Clara Barton
- “Oh northern mothers wives and sisters, all unconscious of the hour, would to Heaven that I could bear for you the concentrated woe which is so soon to follow, would that Christ would teach
my soul a prayer that would plead to the Father for grace sufficient for you, God pity and strengthen you every one.” ~ Clara Barton -
“Let me go, let me go.” ~ Clara Barton
- “What armies and how much of war I have seen, what thousands of marching troops, what fields of slain, what prisons, what hospitals, what ruins, what cities in ashes, what hunger and nakedness, what orphanages, what widowhood, what wrongs and what vengeance.” ~ Clara Barton
- “It is wise statesmanship which suggests that in time of peace we must prepare for war, and it is no less a wise benevolence that makes preparation in the hour of peace for assuaging the ills that are sure to accompany war.” ~ Clara Barton
- “Economy, prudence, and a simple life are the sure masters of need, and will often accomplish that which, their opposites, with a fortune at hand, will fail to do.” ~ Clara Barton
- “Others are writing my biography, and let it rest as they elect to make it. I have lived my life, well and ill, always less well than I wanted it to be but it is, as it is, and as it has been; so small a thing, to have had so much about it!” ~ Clara Barton
