Nursing is an art;
and if it is to be made an art,
it requires as exclusive a devotion,
as hard a preparation,
as any painter's or sculptor's work;

for what is the having (does it have) to do with dead canvas or cold 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 the Fine Arts.

--Florence Nightingale