Quotes by Norman Cousins

“He who keeps his cool best wins.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“My reason nourishes my faith and my faith my reason.”

“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.”

“Life is an adventure in forgiveness.”

“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.”

“History is a vast early warning system.”

“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. It provides human beings with a sense of destination and the energy to get started.”

“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.”

“Hope is independent of the apparatus of logic.”

“We will not have peace by afterthought.”

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

“Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences.”

Click here to go back to main page.

Learn more about Norman Cousins.