Norman Cousins Quotes - Page 3

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

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

Cynicism is intellectual treason.

Nixon's motto was, if two wrongs don't make a right, try three.

If news is not really news unless it is bad news, it may be difficult to claim we are an informed nation

Fortunately or otherwise we live at a time when the average individual has to know several times as much in order to keep informed as he did only thirty or forty years ago. Being "educated" today requires not only more than a superficial knowledge of the arts and sciences, but a sense of inter-relationship such as is taught in few schools. Finally, being "educated" today, in terms of the larger needs, means preparation for world citizenship; in short, education for survival.

History is a vast early warning system.

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.

The human body experiences a powerful gravitational pull in the direction of hope

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

The capacity for hope is the most significant fact of life.

The human body experiences a powerful gravitational pull in the direction of hope. That is why the patient's hopes are the physician's secret weapon. They are the hidden ingredients in any prescription.

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

We have everything we need, in fact, except the most important thing of all — time to think and the habit of thought.

Belief creates biology.

A casual attitude toward human hurt and pain is the surest sign of educational failure.

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.

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.

A book is like a piece of rope; it takes on meaning only in connection with the things it holds together.

I've learned that next to the atomic bomb, the greatest danger is defeatism, despair, and inadequate awareness of what human beings possess. I feel that any problem that can be defined is capable of being resolved. Out of this has come my conviction that no person knows enough to be a pessimist.

Infinity converts the possible into the inevitable.

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.

If there is a conflict between the easy drift of prosperity and the ordeal of peace, the ordeal of peace comes first.

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

The need is not to amputate the ego ... but to transcend it.