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Don't defy the diagnosis, try to defy the verdict.

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
Trying
Verdict
Defy
Diagnosis
Wisdom

More quotes by Norman Cousins

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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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Governments are not built to perceive large truths. Only people can perceive great truths. Governments specialize in small and intermediate truths. They have to be instructed by their people in great truths.
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For every low there is an equal but opposite high.
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People are never more insecure than when they become obsessed with their fears at the expense of their dreams.
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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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The control center of your life is your attitude.
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Your heaviest artillery will be your will to live. Keep that big gun going.
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The library is not a shrine for the worship of books. It is not a temple where literary incense must be burned or where one's one devotion to the bound book is expressed in ritual. 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.
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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?
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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.
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Laughter is a powerful way to tap positive emotions
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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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The essence of man is imperfection. Failure is simply a price we pay to achieve success. If we learn to embrace that new definition of failure, then we are free to start moving ahead - and failing forward.
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The possibility of war increases in direct proportion to the effectiveness of the instruments of war.
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The human body experiences a powerful gravitational pull in the direction of hope
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The marvelous pharmacy that was designed by nature and placed into our being by the universal architect produces most of the medicines we need.
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A casual attitude toward human hurt and pain is the surest sign of educational failure.
Norman Cousins
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History is a vast early warning system.
Norman Cousins
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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.
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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