Quotes from Norman Cousins

The main failure of education is that it has not prepared people to comprehend matters concerning human destiny.

The old emphasis upon superficial differences that separate peoples must give way to education for citizenship in the human community.

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

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

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.

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

Life is an adventure in forgiveness.

Do you prefer that you be right or happy?

The more serious the illness, the more important it is for you to fight back, mobilizing all your resources-spiritual, emotional, intellectual, physical.

Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences.

Optimism doesn't wait on facts. It deals with prospects.

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

Drugs are not always necessary, but belief in recovery always is.

The sense of paralysis proceeds not so much out of the mammoth size of the problem but out of the puniness of the purpose.

Nothing is more powerful than an individual acting out of his conscience, thus helping to bring the collective conscience to life

The tragedy of life is in what dies inside a man while he lives -- the death of genuine feeling, the death of inspired response, the awareness that makes it possible to feel the pain or the glory of other men in yourself.

Drugs are not always necessary. Belief in recovery always is.

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

He who keeps his cool best wins.

Hope is independent of the apparatus of logic.

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

My reason nourishes my faith and my faith my reason.

Man is not imprisoned by habit. Great changes in him can be wrought by crisis - once that crisis can be recognized and understood.

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