Quotes by Norman Cousins

Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences.

It is reasonable to expect the doctor to recognize that science may not have all the answers to problems of health and healing.

The tragedy of life is in what dies inside a man while he lives – the death of genuine feeling, the death of inspired response, the awareness that makes it possible to feel the pain or the glory of other men in yourself.

Respect for the fragility and importance of an individual life is still the mark of an educated man.

We will not have peace by afterthought.

Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.

Hope is independent of the apparatus of logic.

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.

The capacity for hope is the most significant fact of life. It provides human beings with a sense of destination and the energy to get started.

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.