"People often say to me, You don't know what a wife and mother feels. No, I say, I don't and I'm very glad I don't. And they don't know what I feel. … I am sick with indignation at what wives and mothers will do of the most egregious selfishness. And people call it all maternal or conjugal affection, and think it pretty to say so. No, no, let each person tell the truth from his own experience."

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Added on April 10, 2026
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Original Language: English

Sources

Letter to Madame Mohl (13 December 1861)

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Florence_Nightingale