Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd.
—Edith Sitwell (1887–1964) English Poet, Critic
In the past, men created witches; now they create mental patients.
—Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian-American Psychiatrist, Psychoanalyst
Everybody’s youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness.
—Unknown
Madness is consistent, which is more than can be said of poor reason.—Whatever may be the ruling passion at the time continues so throughout the whole delirium, though it should last for life.—Our passions and principles are steady in frenzy, but begin to shift and waver as we return to reason.
—Laurence Sterne (1713–68) Irish Anglican Novelist, Clergyman
I have cultivated my hysteria with delight and terror. Now I suffer continually from vertigo, and today, 23rd of January, 1862, I have received a singular warning, I have felt the wind of the wing of madness pass over me.
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) French Poet, Art Critic, Essayist, Translator
Everybody’s youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American Novelist
And what is an authentic madman? It is a man who preferred to become mad, in the socially accepted sense of the word, rather than forfeit a certain superior idea of human honor. So society has strangled in its asylums all those it wanted to get rid of or protect itself from, because they refused to become its accomplices in certain great nastinesses. For a madman is also a man whom society did not want to hear and whom it wanted to prevent from uttering certain intolerable truths.
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) French Actor, Drama Theorist
O, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven! Keep me in temper. I would not be mad.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
A man of gladness seldom falls into madness.
—Unknown
The insane, for the most part, reason correctly, but from false principles, while they do not perceive that their premises are incorrect.
—Tryon Edwards (1809–94) American Theologian, Author
The different sorts of madness are innumerable.
—Arabic Proverb
Wrath begins in madness and ends in repentance.
—Arabic Proverb
The lightning flashes through my skull; mine eyeballs ache and ache; my whole beaten brain seems as beheaded, and rolling on some stunning ground.
—Herman Melville (1819–91) American Novelist, Short Story Writer, Essayist, Poet
Madness is tonic and invigorating. It makes the sane more sane. The only ones who are unable to profit by it are the insane.
—Henry Miller (1891–1980) American Novelist
The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad.
—Salvador Dali (1904–89) Spanish Painter
It is madness for sheep to talk peace with a wolf.
—Thomas Fuller (1608–61) English Cleric, Historian
It is sheer madness to live in want in order to be wealthy when you die.
—Juvenal (c.60–c.136 CE) Roman Poet
No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
Every madman thinks all other men mad.
—Latin Proverb
But then they danced down the street like dingledodies, and shambled after as I’ve been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”
—Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American Novelist, Poet
I guess the definition of a lunatic is a man surrounded by them.
—Ezra Pound (1885-1972) American Poet, Translator, Critic
Drunkenness is nothing but a self-induced state of insanity.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
Much Madness is divinest Sense—to a discerning Eye—much Sense—the starkest Madness—
—Emily Dickinson (1830–86) American Poet
What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
He raves; his words are loose as heaps of sand, and scattered wide from sense.—So high he’s mounted on his airy throne, that now the wind has got into his head, and turns his brains to frenzy.
—John Dryden (1631–1700) English Poet, Literary Critic, Playwright
The usefulness of madmen is famous: they demonstrate society’s logic flagrantly carried out down to its last scrimshaw scrap.
—Cynthia Ozick (b.1928) American Novelist, Short-story Writer, Essayist
To marry once is a duty, twice a folly, and three times… madness.
—Dutch Proverb
Madness is the absolute break with the work of art; it forms the constitutive moment of abolition, which dissolves in time the truth of the work of art.
—Michel Foucault (1926–84) French Philosopher, Critic, Historian
Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I’m liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That’s what’s insane about it.
—John Lennon (1940–80) British Singer, Songwriter, Musician, Activist
Leave a Reply