Norman Cousins Quotes

A library is the delivery room for the birth of ideas, a place where history comes to life.

What was most significant about the lunar voyage was not that men set foot on the moon but that they...

Your heaviest artillery will be your will to live. Keep that big gun going.

Death is not the enemy living in constant fear of it is.

The capacity for hope is the most significant fact of life. It provides human beings with a sense of...

The individual is capable of both great compassion and great indifference. He has it within his mean...

Illness is always an interaction between [mind and body]. It can begin in the mind and affect the bo...

Capitalism in the United States has undergone profound modification not just under the New Deal but...

People who develop the habit of thinking of themselves as world citizens are fulfilling the first re...

A human being fashions his consequences as surely as he fashions his goods or his dwelling. Nothing ...

Nothing is more essential in the treatment of serious disease than the liberation of the patient fro...

To talk about the need for perfection in man is to talk about the need for another species.

Don't defy the diagnosis try to defy the verdict.

It makes little difference how many university courses or degrees a person may own. If he cannot use...

Suppose I stopped taking aspirin and phenylbutazone? What about the pain? The bones in my spine and ...

The individual is capable of both great compassion and great indifference. He has it withing his mea...

War is an invention of the human mind. The human mind can invent peace.

The possibility of war increases in direct proportion to the effectiveness of the instruments of war...

Life is an adventure in forgiveness

Hearty laughter is a good way to jog internally without having to go outdoors.

He who keeps his cool best wins.

Hope is independent of the apparatus of logic.

History is a vast early warning system.

Each patient carries his own doctor inside him.

The eternal quest of the individual human being is to shatter his loneliness.

The library is not a shrine for the worship of books. It is not a temple where literary incense must...

The human body experiences a powerful gravitational pull in the direction of hope. That is why the p...

Government in the U.S. today is a senior partner in every business in the country.

It has always seemed to me that hearty laughter is a good way to jog internally without having to go...

It is reasonable to expect the doctor to recognize that science may not have all the answers to prob...

The essence of man is imperfection.

Life is an adventure in forgiveness.

Never deny a diagnosis but do deny the negative verdict that may go with it.

My reason nourishes my faith and my faith my reason.

Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences.

Optimism doesn't wait on facts. It deals with prospects. Pessimism is a waste of time.

If ignorance about the nature of pain is widespread, ignorance about the way pain-killing drugs is e...

Respect for the fragility and importance of an individual life is still the mark of an educated man.

Time is the one thing that patients need most from their doctors--time to be heard, time to have thi...

A library, to modify the famous metaphor of Socrates, should be the delivery room for the birth of i...

Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.

Not every illness can be overcome. But many people allow illness to disfigure their lives more than ...

The way a book is read- which is to say,the qualities a reader brings to a book- can have as much to...

People are never more insecure than when they become obsessed with their fears at the expense of the...

Since the human body tends to move in the direction of its expectations-plus or minus-it is importan...

The most costly disease is not cancer or coronaries. The most costly disease is boredom - costly for...

It is nonsense to say there is not enough time to be fully informed. ... Time given to thought is th...

The tragedy of life is in what dies inside a man while he lives - the death of genuine feeling, the ...