Norman Cousins (June 24, 1915 – November 30, 1990) was an American political journalist, author, professor, and world peace advocate.
If news is not really news unless it is bad news, it may be difficult to claim we are an informed nation
Laughter is inner jogging.
Cynicism is intellectual treason.
Death is not the greatest tragedy in life. The greatest tragedy is what dies inside us while we live. We need not fear death. We need fear only that we may exist without having sensed something of the possibilities that lie within human existence.
We 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.
We will not have peace by afterthought.
What people most need now is to apply their conversion skills to those things that are essential for their survival. They need to convert facts into logic, free will into purpose, conscience into decision. They need to convert historical experience into a design for a sane world.
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?
Of all the gifts bestowed by nature on human beings, hearty laughter must be close to the top.
The 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.
Infinity converts the possible into the inevitable.
The capacity for hope is the most significant fact of life.
The need is not to amputate the ego. . . but to transcend it.
Laughter is a powerful way to tap positive emotions
Education 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.
The greatest force in the human body is the natural drive of the body to heal itself - but that force in not independent of the belief system. Everything begins with belief. What we believe is the most powerful option of all.
Words have to be crafted, not sprayed. They need to be fitted together with infinite care.
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.
Silence must be comprehended as not solely the absence of sound. It is the natural environment for serenity and contemplation. Life without silence is life without privacy. The difference between sanity and madness is the quality of our thoughts. Silence is on the side of sanity.
The purpose of education is to enable us to develop to the fullest that which is inside us