Quote

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.

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
Right
Nations
Oneself
Associate
Freedom
Atheism
Penalty
Religion
Saws
Liberties
Individual
Choice
Associates
Underwritten
Father
Nation
Penalties
Disassociate
Certain
Liberty
Founding
Denomination
Without
Choices
Fathers
Denominations
Matter
Belief
Basic
Charter

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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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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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The purpose of education is to enable us to develop to the fullest that which is inside us
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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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Optimism doesn't wait on facts. It deals with prospects. Pessimism is a waste of time.
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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.
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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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Second only to freedom, learning is the most precious option on earth.
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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.
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Drugs are not always necessary. Belief in recovery always is.
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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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Since the human body tends to move in the direction of its expectations- plus or minus-it is important to know that attitudes of confidence and determination are no less a part of the treatment program than medical science and technology.
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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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Silence must be comprehended as not solely the absence of sound. It is the natural environment for serenity and contemplation. Life without silence is life without privacy. The difference between sanity and madness is the quality of our thoughts. Silence is on the side of sanity.
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Pessimism is a waste of time.
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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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Laughter is a powerful way to tap positive emotions
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More and more, the choice for the world's people is between becoming world warriors or world citizens.
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Your heaviest artillery will be your will to live. Keep that big gun going.
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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