Norman Cousins quotes - page 4

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
Time given to thought is the greatest time saver of all.
Norman Cousins
The purpose of education is to enable us to develop to the fullest that which is inside us.
Norman Cousins
The essence of man is imperfection. Failure is simply a price we pay to achieve success. If we learn to embrace that new definition of failure, then we are free to start moving ahead - and failing forward.
Norman Cousins
All things are possible, once enough human beings realize that everything is at stake.
Norman Cousins
An adequate share of humor and laughter represents an essential part of the diet of the healthy person.
Norman Cousins
Since the human body tends to move in the direction of its expectations- plus or minus-it is important to know that attitudes of confidence and determination are no less a part of the treatment program than medical science and technology.
Norman Cousins
Laughter serves as a blocking agent. Like a bullet-proof vest, it may help protect you against the ravages of negative emotions that can assault you in disease.
Norman Cousins
If news is not really news unless it is bad news, it may be difficult to claim we are an informed nation.
Norman Cousins
Pain is part of the body's magic. It is the way the body transmits a sign to the brain that something is wrong. (Norman Cousins)
Of all the gifts bestowed by nature on human beings, hearty laughter must be close to the top.
Norman Cousins
The physician knows that his little black bag can carry him only so far and that the body's own healing system is the main resource.
Norman Cousins
The need is not to amputate the ego ... but to transcend it.
Norman Cousins
If there is a conflict between the easy drift of prosperity and the ordeal of peace, the ordeal of peace comes first.
Norman Cousins
The library is not a shrine for the worship of books. It is not a temple where literary incense must be burned or where one's one devotion to the bound book is expressed in ritual. A library, to modify the famous metaphor of Socrates, should be the delivery room for the birth of ideas - a place where history comes to life.
Norman Cousins
The possibility of war increases in direct proportion to the effectiveness of the instruments of war.
Norman Cousins
I have learned never to underestimate the capacity of the human mind and body to regenerate - even when prospects seem most wretched. The life force may be the least understood force on earth.
Norman Cousins
Humanity today is not safe in the presence of humanity. The old cannibalism has given way to anonymous action in which the killer and the killed do not know each other, and in which,indeed, the very fact of mass death has the effect of making mass killing less reprehensible than the death of a single individual. In short, we have evolved in every respect except our ability to protect ourselves against human intelligence. Our knowledge is vast but does not embrace the workings of peace.
Norman Cousins
Intelligence and the spirit of adventure can be combined to create new energies, and out of these energies may come exciting and rewarding new prospects.
Norman Cousins
What people most need now is to apply their conversion skills to those things that are essential for their survival. They need to convert facts into logic, free will into purpose, conscience into decision. They need to convert historical experience into a design for a sane world. (Norman Cousins)
The one thing I have learned about editing over the years is that you have to edit and publish out of your own tastes, enthusiasms, and concerns, and not out of notions or guesswork about what other people might like to read.
Norman Cousins
The doctor knows that it is the prescription slip itself, even more than what is written on it, that is often the vital ingredient for enabling a patient to get rid of whatever is ailing him.
Norman Cousins
All men - whether they go by the name of Americans or Russians or Chinese or British or Malayans or Indians or Africans - have obligations to one another that transcend their obligations to their sovereign societies.
Norman Cousins
Infinity converts the possible into the inevitable.
Norman Cousins