199 Quotes by Norman Cousins

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.

The only security for the American people today, or for any people, is to be found through the control of force rather than the use of force.

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.

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.

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

Nothing is more essential in the treatment of serious disease than the liberation of the patient from panic and foreboding.

My reason nourishes my faith and my faith my reason.

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.

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.