Quotes by 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 conc...”

“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 bloodst...”

“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 pai...”

“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 o...”

“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.”

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

“Life is an adventure in forgiveness”

“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.”

“History is a vast early warning system.”

“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.”

“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...”

“Each patient carries his own doctor inside him.”

“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...”

“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.”

“He who keeps his cool best wins.”

“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 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...”

“Optimism doesn't wait on facts. It deals with prospects. Pessimism is a waste of time.”

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

“It is reasonable to expect the doctor to recognize that science may not have all the answers to problems of health and healing.”