Quotes from Norman Cousins

It takes courage for a man to listen to his own goodness and act on it. Do we dare to be ourselves? This is the question that counts.

ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep.

Living in the second half of the twentieth century, I realized, confers no automatic protection against unwise or even dangerous drugs and methods. Each age has had to undergo its own special nostrums. (Chapter 1)

Niemand weiß wirklich genug um ein Pessimist zu sein.

that a highly developed purpose and the will to live are among the prime raw materials of human existence. I became convinced that these materials may well represent the most potent force within human reach.

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

Each patient carries his own doctor inside him.

Life is an adventure in forgiveness

If something comes to life in others because of you, then you have made an approach to immortality.

History is a vast early warning system.

The control center of your life is your attitude.

Laughter is inner jogging.

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 (in his; Anatomy of an Illness)

Just as there is no loss of basic energy in the universe, so no thought or action is without its effects, present or ultimate, seen or unseen, felt or unfelt.

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.

The individual is capable of both great compassion and great indifference. He has it within his means to nourish the former and outgrow the latter.

Laughter is a powerful way to tap positive emotions

Some people don't really know enough to make a pronouncement of doom on a human being.

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 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. — Cited in ALA Bulletin, Oct. 1954, p.475

Death is not the ultimate tragedy of life. The ultimate tragedy is depersonalization--dying in an alien and sterile area, separated from the spiritual nourishment that comes from being able to reach out to a loving hand, separated from the desire to experience the things that make life worth living, separated from hope.

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

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

People who develop the habit of thinking of themselves as world citizens are fulfilling the first requirement of sanity in our time.

If ignorance about the nature of pain is widespread, ignorance about the way pain-killing drugs is even more so. What is not generally understood is that many of the vaunted pain-killing drugs conceal the pain without correcting the underlying condition. They deaden the mechanism in the body that alerts the brain to the fact that something may be wrong. The body can pay a high price for suppression of pain without regard to its basic cause.