Florence Nightingale, in a letter (5 September 1857), quoted in The Life of Florence Nightingale (1913) by Edward Tyas Cook, p. 369.
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Asceticism is the trifling of an enthusiast with his power, a puerile coquetting with his selfishness or his vanity, in the absence of any sufficiently great object to employ the first or overcome the last.
— Florence Nightingale on Asceticism
What It Means
This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Asceticism is the trifling of an enthusiast with his power, a puerile coquetting with his selfishness or his vanity, in the absence of any sufficiently great object to employ the first or overcome the last." in the context of "Florence Nightingale, in a letter (5 September 1857), quoted in The Life of Florence Nightingale (1913) by Edward Tyas Cook, p. 369." to mean that wisdom is timeless.
Source: Wikiquote: "Asceticism" (N)
The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
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About Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale (12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was a British nurse, a pioneer of modern nursing, and a noted statistician.
About Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale (12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was a British nurse, a pioneer of modern nursing, and a noted statistician.
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