Quote

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

Norman Cousins

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Norman Cousins
Age: 75 †
Born: 1915
Born: June 24
Died: 1990
Died: November 30
Journalist
Literary Critic
Peace Activist
Professor
Writer
Union City
New Jersey
Doesn
Optimism
Time
Wait
Perspective
Waste
Positive
Deals
Prospects
Waiting
Pessimism
Facts
Optimistic

More quotes by Norman Cousins

Image
Hearty laughter is a good way to jog internally without having to go outdoors.
Norman Cousins
Image
Reverence for life is more than solicitude or sensitivity for life. It is a sense of the whole, a capacity for inspired response, a respect for the intricate universe of individual life. It is the supreme awareness of awareness itself.
Norman Cousins
Image
The human body experiences a powerful gravitational pull in the direction of hope
Norman Cousins
Image
I have learned never to underestimate the capacity of the human mind and body to regenerate - even when prospects seem most wretched. The life force may be the least understood force on earth.
Norman Cousins
Image
If there is a conflict between the easy drift of prosperity and the ordeal of peace, the ordeal of peace comes first.
Norman Cousins
Image
A casual attitude toward human hurt and pain is the surest sign of educational failure.
Norman Cousins
Image
War is an invention of the human mind. The human mind can invent peace with justice.
Norman Cousins
Image
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.
Norman Cousins
Image
He who keeps his cool best wins.
Norman Cousins
Image
Your heaviest artillery will be your will to live. Keep that big gun going.
Norman Cousins
Image
Pessimism is a waste of time.
Norman Cousins
Image
Ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep.
Norman Cousins
Image
I cannot affirm God if I fail to affirm man. Therefore, I affirm both. Without a belief in human unity I am hungry and incomplete. Human unity is the fulfillment of diversity. It is the harmony of opposites. It is a many-stranded texture, with color and depth.
Norman Cousins
Image
Integration is a basic law of life when we resist it, disintegration is the natural result, both inside and outside of us. Thus we come to the concept of harmony through integration.
Norman Cousins
Image
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.
Norman Cousins
Image
The marvelous pharmacy that was designed by nature and placed into our being by the universal architect produces most of the medicines we need.
Norman Cousins
Image
To talk about the need for perfection in man is to talk about the need for another species.
Norman Cousins
Image
Laughter serves as a blocking agent. Like a bullet-proof vest, it may help protect you against the ravages of negative emotions that can assault you in disease.
Norman Cousins
Image
Although a man may have no jurisdiction over the fact of his existence, he can hold supreme command over the meaning of existence for him.
Norman Cousins
Image
We will not have peace by afterthought.
Norman Cousins