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.

Laughter is inner jogging.

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

Just 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.

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.

If the United Nations is to survive, those who represent it must bolster it; those who advocate it must submit to it; and those who believe in it must fight for it.

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.

He who keeps his cool best wins.

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

History is a vast early warning system.

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 eternal quest of the individual human being is to shatter his loneliness.

Life is an adventure in forgiveness.

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