Cicely Saunders Quotes

How people die remains in the memory of those who live on.

You matter because you are you. You matter to the last moment of your life, and we will do all we can, not only to help you die peacefully, but also to live until you die.

As Cicely Saunders wrote: “The dying have shed the masks and superficialities of everyday living and they are all the more open and sensitive because of this. They see through all unreality. I remember one man saying, ‘No, no reading. I only want what is in your mind and in your heart.’”1

The first hospice was founded in England in 1967 by physician Dame Cicely Saunders.

In the 1970s, attitudes slowly began changing. In England, Cicely Saunders, a nurse and researcher, opened a hospice that treated terminal cancer patients with opiates. Under Saunders, St. Christopher’s Hospice in London was the world’s first to combine care for the dying with research and clinical trials.