Quote

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.

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
Free
Essence
Success
Forward
Learn
Failure
Imperfection
Moving
Failing
Definition
Men
Pay
Definitions
Achieve
Ahead
Simply
Price
Start
Embrace

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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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The old emphasis upon superficial differences that separate peoples must give way to education for citizenship in the human community.
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It is no longer correct to regard higher education solely as a privilege. It is a basic right in today's world.
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For every low there is an equal but opposite high.
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We are wide-eyed in contemplating the possibility that life may exist elsewhere in the universe, but we wear blinders when contemplating the possibilities of life on earth.
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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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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 possibility of war increases in direct proportion to the effectiveness of the instruments of war.
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Your heaviest artillery will be your will to live. Keep that big gun going.
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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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Ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep.
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All this sensory input, which begins in the brain, has its effect throughout the body.
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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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Second only to freedom, learning is the most precious option on earth.
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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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The greatest force in the human body is the natural drive of the body to heal itself - but that force in not independent of the belief system. Everything begins with belief. What we believe is the most powerful option of all.
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Laughter is a powerful way to tap positive emotions
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The conquest of war and the pursuit of social justice... must become our grand preoccupation and magnificent obsession.
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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.
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Integration is a basic law of life when we resist it, disintegration is the natural result, both inside and outside of us. Thus we come to the concept of harmony through integration.
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