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.”

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

“Cynicism is intellectual treason.”

“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?”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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 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.”

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

“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.”

“We will not have peace by afterthought.”

“Each patient carries his own doctor inside him.”

“Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences.”

“People who develop the habit of thinking of themselves as world citizens are fulfilling the first requirement of sanity in our time.”

“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.”

“What was most significant about the lunar voyage was not that men set foot on the moon but that they set eye on the earth.”

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