Norman Cousins Quotes

The possibility of war increases in direct proportion to the effectiveness of the instruments of war.
Norman Cousins
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.
Norman Cousins
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.
Norman Cousins
To talk about the need for perfection in man is to talk about the need for another species.
Norman Cousins
The essence of man is imperfection.
Norman Cousins
War is an invention of the human mind. The human mind can invent peace.
Norman Cousins
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
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.
Norman Cousins
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.
Norman Cousins
To talk about the need for perfection in man is to talk about the need for another species.
Norman Cousins
The essence of man is imperfection.
Norman Cousins
War is an invention of the human mind. The human mind can invent peace.
Norman Cousins
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
Don't defy the diagnosis try to defy the verdict.
Norman Cousins
Nothing is more essential in the treatment of serious disease than the liberation of the patient from panic and forboding.
Norman Cousins
The eternal quest of the individual human being is to shatter his loneliness.
Norman Cousins
It has always seemed to me that hearty laughter is a good way to jog internally without having to go outdoors.
Norman Cousins
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.
Norman Cousins
History is a vast early warning system.
Norman Cousins
Life is an adventure in forgiveness.
Norman Cousins
Capitalism in the United States has undergone profound modification not just under the New Deal but through a consensus that continued to grow after the New Deal. Government in the U.S. today is a senior partner in every business in the country.
Norman Cousins
The most costly disease is not cancer or coronaries. The most costly disease is boredom - costly for both individual and society.
Norman Cousins
Death is not the enemy living in constant fear of it is.
Norman Cousins
Never deny a diagnosis but do deny the negative verdict that may go with it.
Norman Cousins
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.
Norman Cousins
A library is the delivery room for the birth of ideas, a place where history comes to life.
Norman Cousins
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
Norman Cousins
Each patient carries his own doctor inside him.
Norman Cousins
Not every illness can be overcome. But many people allow illness to disfigure their lives more than it should. They cave in needlessly. They ignore and weaken whatever powers they have for standing erect. There is always a margin within which life can be lived with meaning and even with a certain measure of joy, despite illness.
Norman Cousins
The individual is capable of both great compassion and great indifference. He has it withing his means to nourish the former and outgrow the latter.
Norman Cousins
People who develop the habit of thinking of themselves as world citizens are fulfilling the first requirement of sanity in our time.
Norman Cousins
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.
Norman Cousins
Illness is always an interaction between [mind and body]. It can begin in the mind and affect the body, or it can begin in the body and affect the mind, both of which are served by the same bloodstream. Attempts to treat most mental diseases as though they were completely free of physical causes and attempts to treat most bodily diseases as though the mind were in no way involved must be considered archaic in the light of new evidence about the way the human body functions.
Norman Cousins
Suppose I stopped taking aspirin and phenylbutazone? What about the pain? The bones in my spine and practically every joint in my body felt as though I had been run over by a truck. I knew that pain could be affected by attitudes. Most people become panicky about almost any pain. On all sides they have been so bombarded with advertisements about pain that they take this or that analgesic at the slightest sign of an ache. We are largely illiterate about pain and so are seldom able to deal with it rationally. Pain is part of the body's magic. It is the way the body transmits a sign to the body that something is wrong.
Norman Cousins
Time is the one thing that patients need most from their doctors--time to be heard, time to have things explained, time to reassured, time to be introduced by the doctor personally to specialists or other attendants whose very existence seems to reflect something new and threatening. yet the one thing that too many doctors find most difficult to command or manage is time.
Norman Cousins
History is a vast early warning system.
Norman Cousins
History is a vast early warning system.
Norman Cousins
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.
Norman Cousins
Life is an adventure in forgiveness
Norman Cousins
Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.
Norman Cousins