Norman Cousins

“Laughter is a form of internal jogging. It moves your internal organs around. It enhances respiration. It is an igniter of great expectations.”

“The first purpose of a liberal education is to make one's mind a pleasant place in which to spend one's leisure.”

“Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences.”

“The greatest force in the human body is the natural drive of the body to heal itself—but that force is not independent of the belief system.”

“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 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.”

“Life is an adventure in forgiveness.”

“The conquest of disability, like the conquest of space, is a triumph of the human spirit.”

“History is a vast early warning system.”

“The tragedy of life is not death but what we let die inside of us while we live.”

“People are never more insecure than when they become obsessed with their fears at the expense of their dreams.”

“Belief becomes biology.”