Nurses

"People will look at this and see hope. It is about changing perceptions of what a professor looks like and creating role models for future generations."

"If this became a seminal part of the national curriculum and other community and educational settings across the country, then it would mean we are not only able to create more understanding in society, but we would be able to tackle racism and division more effectively."

"The Phenomenal Women exhibition showcases the hard work, resilience and success of black female professors in the UK."

"This event will set into sharp focus the importance of learning about black history and Britain’s colonial past."

"Winning those awards meant a lot to me, mainly because at the time there was a real perception that nursing was for people who did not get the grades to go to university."

"She deserves so much credit for the quality of a life of service that Walter led. Her own sacrifice and service deserve as much of our respect and recognition. The naming of this Center after Walter is a tribute to her as well."

"An inspirational leader. An activist. A passionate educator. A philanthropist. A woman, inspired by the idea that one can change the world, the idea that one can change the existing conditions of the people – that all South Africans are treated equal. A champion of the rights and emancipation of women."

"Among these revolutionary giants was stalwart Albertina Sisulu who played a formative role in the opposition to apartheid and in building a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa...we celebrate the centenary anniversary of the life of Mama Sisulu – who took on the mantle of leadership during our darkest hours and remained a selfless servant of the people throughout her life. For her bold role in the fight for freedom, she suffered immensely at the hands of the apartheid regime. She was jailed several times for her political activities and constantly harassed by the apartheid’s security police."

"We are each required to walk our own road and then stop, assess what we have learnt, and share it with others. It is only in this way that the next generation can learn from those who have walked before them. We can do no more than tell our story. Then it is up to them to make of it what they will."

"Women are the people who are going to relieve us from all this oppression and depression. The rent boycott that is happening in Soweto now [in the 1980s] is alive because of the women. It is the women who are on the street committees educating the people to stand up and protect each other"

"And the lesson that I thought I learned, and that we both learned from that experience, that when you moved beyond the person's colour and you get to know them as a person, that you find that we're very, very similar in likes, dislikes, our wants and our experiences in life."

"It was ironic that even my small triumphs were not attributed to me."

"Crippled for life at seventeen, His great eyes seems to question why: with both legs smashed it might have been Better in that grim trench to die Than drag maimed years out helplessly."

"A child - so wasted and so white, He told a lie to get his way, To march, a man with men, and fight While other boys are still at play. A gallant lie your heart will say."

"Somehow for me these common tunes Can never sound the same again: They've magic now to thrill my heart And bring before me, clear and plain, Man that is master of his flesh, And has the laugh of death and pain."

"Jock with his crutches beats the time; The gunner, with his head close-bound, Listen with puzzled, patient smile: (Shell shocked-he cannot hear a sound). The others join in from their beds, And send the chorus rolling round."

"The Welsh boy has it by his bed, (He's lame - one leg blown away - He'll lie propped up with pillows there, And wind the handle half the day. His neighbour, with the shattered arm, Picks out the records he must play."

"Through the long ward the gramophone Grinds out its nasal melodies: "Where did you get that girl?" it shrills. The patients listen at their ease, Through clouds of strong tobacco smoke: The gramophone can always please."

"Through the wide open window on great star, Swinging her lamp above the pear-tree high, Looks in upon these dreaming forms that lie So near in body, yet in soul so far As those bright worlds thick strewn ion that vast depth of sky."

"One murmurs soft and low a woman's name; And here a vet'ran soldier calm and still As sculptured marble sleeps, and roams at will Through eastern lands where sunbeams scorch like flame, By rich bazaar and town, and wood-wrapt snow-crowned hill."

"And one laughs out with an exultant joy. An athlete he - Maybe his young limbs strain In some remembered game, and not in vain To win his side the goal - Poor crippled boy, Who in the waking world will never run again."

"Here one cries sudden on a sobbing breath, Gripped in the clutch of some incarnate fear What terror through the darkness draweth near? What memory of carnage and ofdeath What vanished scenes of dread to his closed eyes appear?"

"The pain and laughter of the day are done So strangely hushed and still the long ward seems, Only the Sister's candle softly beams. Clear from the church near by the clock strikes 'one'; And all are wrapt away in secret sleep and dreams."

"And through that Golgotha of blood and clay, Where watchers cursed the sick dawn, heavy-eyed, There (in my dream) Christ passed upon His way, Where His cross marks their nameless graves who died Slain for the world's salvation where all day For others' sake strong men are crucified."

"I dreamt last night Christ came to earth again To bless His own. My soul from place to place On her dream-quest sped, seeking for His face Through temple and town and lovely land, in vain. Then came I to a place where death and pain Had made of God's sweet world a waste forlorn, With shattered trees and meadows gashed and torn, Where the grim trenches scarred the shell-sheared plain."

"But when the dreaded moment's there He'll face us all, a soldier yet, Watch his bared wounds with unmoved air, (Though tell-tale lashes still are wet), And smoke his Woodbine cigarette."

"So broke with pain, he shrinks in dread To see the 'dresser' drawing near; and winds the clothes about his head That none may see his heart-sick fear. His shaking, strangled sobs you hear."

"Tell David Cameron that if he screws up my beloved NHS I'll come back and bloody haunt him."

"The trouble about the fashions is, there are too many going on at once, and you can't follow them all. Sometimes, I think I will give them all up, and just be dowdy."

"Jane: What do you think of his book Arthur? Gideon: I don't think of it. I've had no reason to, particularly. I've not had to review it. ...I'm afraid I'm hopeless about novels just now, that's the fact. I'm sick of the form—slices of life served up cold in three hundred pages. Oh, it's very nice; it makes nice reading for people. But what's the use? Except, of course, to kill time for those who prefer it dead. But as things in themselves, as art, they've been ruined by excess. My critical sense is blunted just now. I can hardly feel the difference, though I can see it, between a good novel and a bad one. I couldn't write one, good or bad, to save my life, I know that. And I've got to the stage when I wish other people wouldn't. I wish everyone would shut up, so that we could hear ourselves think..."

"To the politician we are something of a dark horse. He does not know what we want; he wishes he did. Do we know ourselves? Vaguely we know that we don't want the politician."

"Once learnt, this business of cooking was to prove an ever growing burden. It scarcely bears thinking about, the time and labour that man and womankind has devoted to the preparation of dishes that are to melt and vanish in a moment like smoke or a dream, like a shadow, and as a post that hastes by, and the air closes behind them, and afterwards no sign of where they went is to be found."

"How fast and how loud foreigners talk ! It is a gift ; the British cannot talk so loud or so fast. They have too many centuries of fog in their throats."

"Words, living and ghostly, the quick and the dead, crowd and jostle the otherwise too empty corridors of my mind. ... To move among this bright, strange, often fabulous herd of beings, to summon them at my will, to fasten them on to paper like flies, that they may decorate it, this is the pleasure of writing."

""Take my camel, dear," said my aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass."

"Poem me no poems."

"Each wrong act brings with it its own anaesthetic, dulling the conscience and blinding it against further light, and sometimes for years."

"Cranks live by theory, not by pure desire. They want votes, peace, nuts, liberty and spinning-looms not because they love these things, as a child loves jam, but because they think they ought to have them. That is one element which makes the crank. Another is lack of proportion, the obsession with one desire or one principle to the minimising or exclusion of others; exaggeration, in fact."

"The best book she has written, and that is saying a lot."

"Rose Macaulay is a wise guide, tolerant, generous-minded, liberal, courageous, cheerful, and her judgments of society and social values are always sound."

"How fortunate we were who still had hope, I did not then realise; I could not know how soon the time would come when we should have no more hope, and yet be unable to die. Roland’s letters—the sensitive letters of the newly baptised young soldier, so soon to be hardened by the protective iron of remorseless indifference to horror and pain — made the struggle to concentrate no easier, for they drove me to a feverish searching into fundamental questions to which no immediate answers were forthcoming."

"When I think how suddenly, instantly, a chance bullet may put an end to that brilliant life, may cut it off in its youth and mighty promise, faith in the ‘increasing purpose’ of the ages grows dim."

"We should never be at the mercy of Providence if only we understood that we ourselves are Providence."

"The fact that his highly respected old friend regarded the presence of women at Oxford as in no way remarkable undoubtedly caused him to revise his opinion on the whole subject of the higher education of daughters."

"When the Great War broke out, it came to me not as a superlative tragedy, but as an interruption of the most exasperating kind to my personal plans. To explain the reason for this egotistical view of history’s greatest disaster, it is necessary to go back a little... p. 17"

""Long ago there lived a rich merchant who, besides possessing more treasures than any king in the world, had in his great hall three chairs, one of silver, one of gold, and one of diamonds. But his greatest treasure of ail was his only daughter, who was called Catherine. One day Catherine was sitting in her own room when suddenly the door flew open, and in came a tall and beautiful woman... 'Catherine... which would you rather have a happy youth or a happy old age?... Then Catherine thought... ‘If I say a happy youth, then I shall have to suffer all the rest of my life. No, I will bear trouble now, and have something better to look forward to.’ So she looked up and said : ‘ Give me a happy old age.’...‘ So be it,’ said the lady..."

"I have tried to write the exact truth as I saw and see it about both myself and other people, since a book of this kind has no value unless it is honest... It is not by accident that what I have written constitutes, in effect, the indictment of a civilisation."

"I know one husband and wife who, whatever the official reasons given to the court for the break up of their marriage, were really divorced because the husband believed that nobody ought to read while he was talking and the wife that nobody ought to talk while she was reading."

"Politics are usually the executive expression of human immaturity."

"It is probably true to say that the largest scope for change still lies in men’s attitude to women, and in women’s attitude to themselves."