Norman Cousins's Quotes

A human being fashions his consequences as surely as he fashions his goods or his dwelling. Nothing that he says, thinks or does is without consequences.

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.

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

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.

Government in the U.S. today is a senior partner in every business in the country.

The only security for the American people today, or for any people, is to be found through the control of force rather than the use of force.

We will not have peace by afterthought.

Where is the indignation about the fact that the US and USSR have thirty thousand pounds of destructive force for every human being in the world?

If the United Nations is to survive, those who represent it must bolster it; those who advocate it must submit to it; and those who believe in it must fight for it.

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.

The way a book is read, which is to say, the qualities a reader brings to a book can have as much to do with its worth as anything the author puts into it.

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

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.

It makes little difference how many university courses or degrees a person may own. If he cannot use words to move an idea from one point to another, his education is incomplete.

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

Life is an adventure in forgiveness.

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

Hearty laughter is a good way to jog internally without having to go outdoors.

He who keeps his cool best wins.

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

Optimism doesn't wait on facts. It deals with prospects. Pessimism is a waste of time.

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

History is a vast early warning system.

The capacity for hope is the most significant fact of life. It provides human beings with a sense of destination and the energy to get started.

My reason nourishes my faith and my faith my reason.

Cynicism is intellectual treason.