27 Clara Barton Quotes

“I go for anything new that might improve the past.” – Clara Barton. Here are 27 Clara Barton Quotes.

Clara Barton Quotes

1. “I wonder if a soldier ever does mend a bullet hole in his coat?” – Clara Barton

2. “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

3. “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

4. “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

5. “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

6. “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

7. “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

Clara Barton Quotes

8. “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, it has by its nature a field of its own.” – Clara Barton

9. “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 hold in my sleeve.” – Clara Barton

10. “If woman alone had suffered under these mistaken traditions [or woman’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

11. “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
If you’re enjoying these quotes, you’ll love our collection of war quotes from writers, politicians, and more.

12. “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

13. “I founded the American Red Cross.” – Clara Barton

14. “Offering a hand up is not a hand-out.” – Clara Barton

Clara Barton Quotes

15. “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

16. “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

17. “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 summer and 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

18.“My business is staunching 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

19. “I have an almost complete disregard of precedent and a faith in the possibility of something better.” – Clara Barton

20. “When you were weak and I was strong, I toiled for you. Now you are strong and I am weak. Because of my work for you, I ask your aid. I ask the ballot for myself and my sex. As I stood by you, I pray you stand by me and mine.” – Clara Barton

21. “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

Clara Barton Quotes

22. “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

23. “We have captured one fort – Gregg – and one charnel house – Wagner – and we have built one cemetery, Morris Island. The thousand little sand-hills that in the pale moonlight are a thousand headstones, and the restless ocean waves that roll and breakup on the whitened beach sing an eternal requiem to the toll-worn gallant dead who sleep beside.” – Clara Barton

24. “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.” – Clara Barton

25. “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

26. “The door that nobody else will go in at seems always to swing open widely for me.” – Clara Barton

27. “I went to the Senate, accomplished nothing as usual.” – Clara Barton