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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

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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
Existence
Fact
Facts
Jurisdiction
May
Command
Men
Supreme
Although
Meaning
Hold

More quotes by Norman Cousins

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What was significant about the laughter . . . was not just the fact that it provides internal exercise for a person . . . form of jogging for the innards, but that it creates a mood in which the other positive emotions can be put to work, too.
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The poet reminds men of their uniqueness and it is not necessary to possess the ultimate definition of this uniqueness. Even to speculate is a gain.
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Freedom of religion, as the Founding Fathers saw it, was not just the right to associate oneself with a certain denomination but the right to disassociate without penalty. Belief or nonbelief was a matter of individual choice - a right underwritten in the basic charter of the nation's liberties.
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Government in the U.S. today is a senior partner in every business in the country.
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Nothing is more essential in the treatment of serious disease than the liberation of the patient from panic and foreboding.
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A casual attitude toward human hurt and pain is the surest sign of educational failure.
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The old emphasis upon superficial differences that separate peoples must give way to education for citizenship in the human community.
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Why are people more appalled at what they term an unnatural form of dying than by an unnatural form of living?
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The great challenge of the '90s... is to salvage and improve the UN and to develop it into an agency capable of meeting the wide range of serious problems that are inherent in a world that has become a single geographic unit.
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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.
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We will not have peace by afterthought.
Norman Cousins
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You are younger today than you will ever be again. Make use of it for the sake of tomorrow.
Norman Cousins
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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.
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Progress begins with the belief that what is necessary is possible.
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The American people are beginning to think in new ways about health and illness . . . Bernie Siegel is helping to define and open up these new frontiers. In this sense he is in the best medical tradition.
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War is an invention of the human mind. The human mind can invent peace with justice.
Norman Cousins
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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.
Norman Cousins
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Assume responsibility for the quality of your own life
Norman Cousins
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Optimism doesn't wait on facts. It deals with prospects. Pessimism is a waste of time.
Norman Cousins
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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