Norman Cousins Quotations | Page 2

Nothing is more powerful than an individual acting out their conscience, thus helping bring the collective conscience to life.

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.

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?

Cynicism is intellectual treason.

Man is not imprisoned by habit. Great changes in him can be wrought by crisis - once that crisis can be recognized and understood.

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

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.

It is well known that panic, despair, depression, hate, rage, exasperation, frustration all produce negative biochemical changes in the body.

Death is not the enemy; living in constant fear of it is.

The essence of man is imperfection.