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To talk about the need for perfection in man is to talk about the need for another species.

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
Needs
Men
Perfection
Species
Talk
Another
Need

More quotes by Norman Cousins

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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.
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If there is a conflict between the easy drift of prosperity and the ordeal of peace, the ordeal of peace comes first.
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All this sensory input, which begins in the brain, has its effect throughout the body.
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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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The way a book is read, which is to say, the qualities a reader brings to a book can have as much to do with its worth as anything the author puts into it.
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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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He who keeps his cool best wins.
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For every low there is an equal but opposite high.
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Assume responsibility for the quality of your own life
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Cynicism is intellectual treason.
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Don't defy the diagnosis, try to defy the verdict.
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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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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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Progress begins with the belief that what is necessary is possible.
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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.
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We have everything we need, in fact, except the most important thing of all — time to think and the habit of thought.
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My reason nourishes my faith and my faith my reason.
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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.
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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.
Norman Cousins