Norman Cousins Quotes

I'm prone to a more depressed outlook on life.

I'm not yet desperate enough to do anything about the conditions that are making me desperate.

I want no part of making any contribution whatsoever to the despair which eventually follows downbeat thinking.

If you're really invested in feeling bad about the world, there are a lot of media outlets out there that you can turn to.

I'm just sittin here trying not to be unhappy.

I say there're no depressed words just depressed minds.

I never really thought of myself as depressed so much as paralyzed by hope.

I don't have time to be depressed.

Depression is a situation of self-fulfilling pessimism.

Hopelessness is a feeling. It's not a fact.

I think if you allow yourself to mope and feel sorry for yourself, it can take years off your life.

If you're running around with a negative attitude all the time, you're going to feel down; you're going to have negative results.

We need hope. There's nothing worse than to live a life of despair. For a person to have no hope just sucks the blue out of every sky.

The main trouble with despair is that it is self-fulfilling. People who fear the worst tend to invite it. Heads that are down can't scan the horizon for new openings. Bursts of energy do not spring from a spirit of defeat. Ultimately, helplessness leads to hopelessness.

Panic was the worst thing. When you panicked, you couldn't see possibilities. Then came despair.

Despair is vinegar from the wine of hope.

Unhappiness is the ultimate form of self-indulgence.

I think as time goes on, I'm trying to get less fatalistic, because that's just one of those unhealthy, kind of dangerous head spaces to get in, of not being able to tolerate sustained positive energy.

To face life without hope can mean to live without despair.

I don't want to get depressed, I don't want to get down in the dumps, and I don't want to get teased with the idea that everything's rigged and everything's fake.

If things were half as bad as some people persist in believing, I'd have retired with a bottle of Scotch and a pistol a long time ago.

This is my depressed stance. When you're depressed, it makes a lot of difference how you stand. The worst thing you can do is straighten up and hold your head high because then you'll start to feel better. If you're going to get any joy out of being depressed, you've got to stand like this.

Trouble has no necessary connection with discouragement. Discouragement has a germ of its own, as different from trouble as arthritis is different from a stiff joint.

With optimism, you look upon the sunny side of things. People say, 'Studs, you're an optimist.' I never said I was an optimist. I have hope because what's the alternative to hope? Despair? If you have despair, you might as well put your head in the oven.

Helplessness induces hopelessness, and history attests that loss of hope and not loss of lives is what decides the issue of war.