Norman Cousins (1915–90) was an American political journalist, author, professor, and world peace advocate.
Source: Wikipedia (via CC-BY-SA license) • READ: Works by Norman Cousins
Optimism doesn’t wait on facts. It deals with prospects. Pessimism is a waste of time.
—Norman Cousins
Topics: Optimism, Pessimism
The more serious the illness, the more important it is for you to fight back, mobilizing all your resources-spiritual, emotional, intellectual, physical.
—Norman Cousins
Hope is independent of the apparatus of logic.
—Norman Cousins
Topics: Hope
Respect for the fragility and importance of an individual life is still the mark of an educated man.
—Norman Cousins
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.
—Norman Cousins
Topics: Hope, Purpose
Nothing is more powerful than an individual acting out of his conscience, thus helping to bring the collective conscience to life.
—Norman Cousins
Topics: Helping, Conscience
Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.
—Norman Cousins
Topics: Living, Death, Dying
The eternal quest of the individual human being is to shatter his loneliness.
—Norman Cousins
Topics: Loneliness
Never deny a diagnosis, but do deny the negative verdict that may go with it.
—Norman Cousins
Topics: Acceptance
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.
—Norman Cousins
War is an invention of the human mind. The human mind can invent peace with justice.
—Norman Cousins
Death is not the enemy; living in constant fear of it is.
—Norman Cousins
Topics: Anxiety, Fear
All this sensory input, which begins in the brain, has its effect throughout the body.
—Norman Cousins
Topics: The Mind
It is nonsense to say there is not enough time to be fully informed … Time given to thought is the greatest timesaver of all.
—Norman Cousins
Topics: Value of Time, Time Management
Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences.
—Norman Cousins
To talk about the need for perfection in man is to talk about the need for another species.
—Norman Cousins
Topics: Perfection
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