Quote

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

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
Mind
Force
Wretched
Never
Seems
Underestimate
Life
Earth
Illness
Body
Capacity
May
Understood
Human
Seem
Humans
Learned
Regenerate
Even
Least
Prospects

More quotes by Norman Cousins

Image
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.
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
We are becoming a nation of sissies and hypochondriacs, a self medicating society easily intimidated by pain and prone to panic. We understand almost nothing about the essential robustness of the human body or its ability to meet the challenge of illness.
Norman Cousins
Image
Pessimism is a waste of time.
Norman Cousins
Image
A casual attitude toward human hurt and pain is the surest sign of educational failure.
Norman Cousins
Image
The heart of the matter is that some people like to cause injury or death to living things. And many of those who do not are indifferent to those who do.
Norman Cousins
Image
Hearty laughter is a good way to jog internally without having to go outdoors.
Norman Cousins
Image
The control center of your life is your attitude.
Norman Cousins
Image
It is well known that panic, despair, depression, hate, rage, exasperation, frustration all produce negative biochemical changes in the body.
Norman Cousins
Image
The capacity for hope is the most significant fact of life.
Norman Cousins
Image
History is a vast early warning system.
Norman Cousins
Image
Death is not the enemy living in constant fear of it is.
Norman Cousins
Image
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.
Norman Cousins
Image
It is no longer correct to regard higher education solely as a privilege. It is a basic right in today's world.
Norman Cousins
Image
The physician's ability to reassure the patient is a major factor in activating the body's own healing system.
Norman Cousins
Image
The purpose of education is to enable us to develop to the fullest that which is inside us
Norman Cousins
Image
The doctor knows that it is the prescription slip itself, even more than what is written on it, that is often the vital ingredient for enabling a patient to get rid of whatever is ailing him.
Norman Cousins
Image
Why are people more appalled at what they term an unnatural form of dying than by an unnatural form of living?
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
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.
Norman Cousins