Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.
Norman CousinsThe American people are beginning to think in new ways about health and illness . . . Bernie Siegel is helping to define and open up these new frontiers. In this sense he is in the best medical tradition.
Norman CousinsRespect for the fragility and importance of an individual life is still the mark of an educated man.
Norman CousinsIt 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.
Norman CousinsThe doctor knows that it is the prescription slip itself, even more than what is written on it, that is often the vital ingredient for enabling a patient to get rid of whatever is ailing him.
Norman CousinsLaughter is a form of internal jogging. It moves your internal organs around. It enhances respiration. It is an igniter of great expectations.
Norman CousinsThe American people today are involved in a warfare more deadly than the war in Vietnam, but few of them seem aware of it and even fewer of them are doing anything about it. This is a war that is being waged against the American environment, against our lands, air, and water, which are the basis of that environment.
Norman CousinsPain is part of the body's magic. It is the way the body transmits a sign to the brain that something is wrong.
Norman CousinsThe 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 CousinsIt is no longer correct to regard higher education solely as a privilege. It is a basic right in today's world.
Norman CousinsOptimism doesn't wait on facts. It deals with prospects. Pessimism is a waste of time.
Norman CousinsThe growth of the human mind is still high adventure, in many ways the highest adventure on earth.
Norman CousinsReverence for life is more than solicitude or sensitivity for life. It is a sense of the whole, a capacity for inspired response, a respect for the intricate universe of individual life. It is the supreme awareness of awareness itself.
Norman CousinsWe are wide-eyed in contemplating the possibility that life may exist elsewhere in the universe, but we wear blinders when contemplating the possibilities of life on earth.
Norman CousinsIntegration is a basic law of life; when we resist it, disintegration is the natural result, both inside and outside of us. Thus we come to the concept of harmony through integration.
Norman CousinsUnobstructed access to facts can produce unlimited good only if it is matched by the desire and ability to find out what they mean and where they lead.
Norman CousinsThe 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 CousinsIf news is not really news unless it is bad news, it may be difficult to claim we are an informed nation
Norman CousinsYou are younger today than you will ever be again. Make use of it for the sake of tomorrow.
Norman CousinsEducation fails unless the Three R's at one end of the school spectrum lead ultimately to the Four P's at the other-Preparati on for Earning, Preparation for Living, Preparation for Understanding, Preparation for Participation in the problems involved in the making of a better world.
Norman CousinsThe one thing I have learned about editing over the years is that you have to edit and publish out of your own tastes, enthusiasms, and concerns, and not out of notions or guesswork about what other people might like to read.
Norman CousinsThe 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 CousinsNothing is more powerful than an individual acting out their conscience, thus helping bring the collective conscience to life.
Norman CousinsJust 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.
Norman CousinsIn a democracy, the individual enjoys not only the ultimate power but carries the ultimate responsibility.
Norman CousinsThe old emphasis upon superficial differences that separate peoples must give way to education for citizenship in the human community.
Norman CousinsThe possibility of war increases in direct proportion to the effectiveness of the instruments of war.
Norman CousinsAlthough a man may have no jurisdiction over the fact of his existence, he can hold supreme command over the meaning of existence for him.
Norman CousinsThe marvelous pharmacy that was designed by nature and placed into our being by the universal architect produces most of the medicines we need.
Norman CousinsSince 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 CousinsGovernments are not built to perceive large truths. Only people can perceive great truths. Governments specialize in small and intermediate truths. They have to be instructed by their people in great truths.
Norman CousinsThe conquest of war and the pursuit of social justice... must become our grand preoccupation and magnificent obsession.
Norman CousinsAn adequate share of humor and laughter represents an essential part of the diet of the healthy person.
Norman CousinsWe have learned to live in a world of mistakes and defective products as if they were necessary to life. It is time to adopt a new philosophy in America.
Norman CousinsPeople are never more insecure than when they become obsessed with their fears at the expense of their dreams.
Norman CousinsThe 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.
Norman Cousins