Edith Cavell Quotes

Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.

She became fascinated by the statue of Edith Cavell and would stand at the base of it in the freezing cold of a December morning, looking up: - Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness for anyone-. Sometimes those words made her cry. The tears would come uncontrollably and they would not stop. And in those moments Anna found forgiveness and it made her free. But they were only moments. Forgiveness is a hard thing to hang on to.

Standing as I do in view of God and Eternity, I realise that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness for anyone.” Nurse Edith Cavell reached deep to find forgiveness just prior to her execution at dawn on 12th October 1915 by the German Army for assisting Allied prisoners. Edith is celebrated for caring for the plight of others, for saving the lives of soldiers from both sides without discrimination and for helping some 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium during the First World War. For this she was arrested, tried, found guilty under German martial law and shot.

And you, women of America and of the World! Will you not honor the memory of this martyr of your sex, who for all time will be mourned as was the noblest Greek maiden, Antigone, who also gave her life that her brother might have the rites of sepulture? Will you not carry on in her name and for her memory those sacred ministrations of mercy which were her lifework? Make her cause—the cause of justice and mercy—your own!

Please don’t think of me as a martyr. Think of me simply as a nurse who only tried to do her duty.