The sense of paralysis proceeds not so much out of the mammoth size of the problem but out of the puniness of the purpose. Norman Cousins More Quotes by Norman Cousins More Quotes From Norman Cousins If news is not really news unless it is bad news, it may be difficult to claim we are an informed nation Norman Cousins news claims may Laughter may or may not activate the endorphins or enhance respiration, as some medical researchers contend. What seems clear, however, is that laughter is an antidote to apprehension and panic. Norman Cousins panic laughter may No one really knows enough to be a pessimist. Norman Cousins pessimist enough inspirational Nothing is more essential in the treatment of serious disease than the liberation of the patient from panic and foreboding. Norman Cousins panic essentials disease Why are people more appalled at what they term an unnatural form of dying than by an unnatural form of living? Norman Cousins dying death people Cynicism is intellectual treason. Norman Cousins cynicism intellectual literature 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. Norman Cousins pain self challenges Humanity today is not safe in the presence of humanity. The old cannibalism has given way to anonymous action in which the killer and the killed do not know each other, and in which,indeed, the very fact of mass death has the effect of making mass killing less reprehensible than the death of a single individual. In short, we have evolved in every respect except our ability to protect ourselves against human intelligence. Our knowledge is vast but does not embrace the workings of peace. Norman Cousins humanity doe peace More and more, the choice for the world's people is between becoming world warriors or world citizens. Norman Cousins warrior choices people But we have yet to make peace basic to our education. The most important subject in the world is hardly taught at all. In the spirit of this passage, the editor has taken the liberty of editing Mr. Cousins' language to make it more gender inclusive. Norman Cousins cousin taken peace The most costly disease is boredom costly for both individual and society. Norman Cousins boredom leadership sports The capacity for hope is the most significant fact of life. Norman Cousins significant hope facts What a man really says when he says that someone else can be persuaded by force, is that he himself is incapable of more rational means of communication. Norman Cousins communication men mean Education tends to be diagrammatic and categorical, opening up no sluices in the human imagination on the wonder of the beauty of our unique estate in the cosmos. Little wonder that it becomes so easy for our young to regard human hurt casually or to be uninspired by the magic of sensitivity. Norman Cousins unique hurt education At a Dodger baseball game in Los Angeles, I asked Will Durant if he was ninety-four or ninety-five. "Ninety-four," he said. "You don't think I'd be doing anything as foolish as this if I were ninety-five, do you?" Norman Cousins baseball games thinking What was most significant about the lunar voyage was not that men set foot on the moon but that they set eye on the earth. Norman Cousins eye moon journey We have everything we need, in fact, except the most important thing of all — time to think and the habit of thought. Norman Cousins time america thinking For every low there is an equal but opposite high. Norman Cousins equality opposites lows Where is the indignation about the fact that the US and USSR have thirty thousand pounds of destructive force for every human being in the world? Norman Cousins war peace world The real wealth, not only of America, but of the world, is in the resources of the ground we stand on, and in the resources of the humankind. Norman Cousins real america world
