Norman Cousins

He who keeps his cool best wins.

— Norman Cousins

Life is an adventure in forgiveness.

— Norman Cousins

We will not have peace by afterthought.

— Norman Cousins

No one really knows enough to be a pessimist.

— Norman Cousins

The essence of man is imperfection.

— Norman Cousins

History is an accumulation of error.

— Norman Cousins

Cynicism is intellectual treason.

— Norman Cousins

Do you prefer that you be right or happy?

— Norman Cousins

The purpose of education is to enable us to develop to the fullest that which is inside us

— Norman Cousins

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

— Norman Cousins

The need is to recognize that The patient is the healer, Not the doctor.

— Norman Cousins

Second only to freedom, learning is the most precious option on earth.

— Norman Cousins

The main trouble with despair is that it is self-fulfilling.

— Norman Cousins

For every low there is an equal but opposite high.

— Norman Cousins

The life-force may be the least understood force on earth.

— Norman Cousins

All things are possible, once enough human beings realize that everything is at stake.

— Norman Cousins

The capacity for hope is most significant fact of life. It provides human being with sense of destination and energy to get…

— Norman Cousins

What a man really says when he says that someone else can be persuaded by force, is that he himself is incapable…

— Norman Cousins

The growth of the human mind is still high adventure, in many ways the highest adventure on earth.

— Norman Cousins

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

— Norman Cousins

The marvelous pharmacy that was designed by nature and placed into our being by the universal architect produces most of the medicines…

— Norman Cousins

The message from the moon which we have flashed to the far corners of this planet is that no problem need any…

— Norman Cousins

It is reasonable to expect the doctor to recognize that science may not have all the answers to problems of health and…

— Norman Cousins

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

— Norman Cousins

To be able to rise from the earth; to be able, from a station in outer space, to see the relationship of…

— Norman Cousins

We are becoming a nation of sissies and hypochondriacs, a self medicating society easily intimidated by pain and prone to panic. We…

— Norman Cousins

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

— Norman Cousins

Education fails unless the Three R's at one end of the school spectrum lead ultimately to the Four P's at the other-Preparati…

— Norman Cousins

“I have learned never to underestimate the capacity of the human mind and body to regenerate -- even when prospects seem most…

— Norman Cousins

At a Dodger baseball game in Los Angeles, I asked Will Durant if he was ninety-four or ninety-five. "Ninety-four," he said. "You…

— Norman Cousins

No one has been able to define or synthesize that precarious, splendid, and perhaps untidy instant when the creative process begins. This…

— Norman Cousins

The great challenge of the '90s... is to salvage and improve the UN and to develop it into an agency capable of…

— Norman Cousins

“Time is the one thing that patients need most from their doctors--time to be heard, time to have things explained, time to…

— Norman Cousins

Humanity today is not safe in the presence of humanity. The old cannibalism has given way to anonymous action in which the…

— Norman Cousins

The justification for those actions was that we were living in a very hard, predatory, cloak-and-dagger world and that the only way…

— Norman Cousins

“Suppose I stopped taking aspirin and phenylbutazone? What about the pain? The bones in my spine and practically every joint in my…

— Norman Cousins

On the quality of life: #1. Realize that each human being has a built-in capacity for recuperation and repair. #2. Recognize that…

— Norman Cousins

“If ignorance about the nature of pain is widespread, ignorance about the way pain-killing drugs is even more so. What is not…

— Norman Cousins

“Illness is always an interaction between [mind and body]. It can begin in the mind and affect the body, or it can…

— Norman Cousins

Fortunately or otherwise we live at a time when the average individual has to know several times as much in order to…

— Norman Cousins