In this century the writer has carried on a conversation with madness. We might almost say of the twentieth-century writer that he aspires to madness. Some have made it, of course, and they hold special places in our regard. To a writer, madness is a final distillation of self, a final editing down. It’s the drowning out of false voices.
—Don DeLillo (b.1936) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
The extreme limit of wisdom—that’s what the public calls madness.
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French Poet, Playwright, Film Director
Great wits are sure to madness near allied
And thin partitions do their bounds divide.
—John Dryden (1631–1700) English Poet, Literary Critic, Playwright
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
Everybody’s youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness.
—Unknown
In the past, men created witches; now they create mental patients.
—Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian-American Psychiatrist, Psychoanalyst
Insanity in individuals is something rare—but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
Much Madness is divinest Sense—to a discerning Eye—much Sense—the starkest Madness—
—Emily Dickinson (1830–86) American Poet
Only those things are beautiful which are inspired by madness and written by reason.
—Andre Gide (1869–1951) French Novelist
It is madness for sheep to talk peace with a wolf.
—Thomas Fuller (1608–61) English Cleric, Historian
Madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be break-through. It is potential liberation and renewal as well as enslavement and existential death.
—R. D. Laing (1927–89) Scottish Psychiatrist
It is sheer madness to live in want in order to be wealthy when you die.
—Juvenal (c.60–c.136 CE) Roman Poet
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
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
Wrath begins in madness and ends in repentance.
—Arabic Proverb
The experience and behavior that gets labeled schizophrenic is a special strategy that a person invents in order to live in an unlivable situation.
—R. D. Laing (1927–89) Scottish Psychiatrist
No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
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
To marry once is a duty, twice a folly, and three times… madness.
—Dutch Proverb
To think the world therefore a general Bedlam, or place of madmen, and oneself a physician, is the most necessary point of present wisdom: an important imagination, and the way to happiness.
—Thomas Traherne (1636–74) English Metaphysical Poet, Mystic
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
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
Everybody’s youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American Novelist
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
Perhaps he was a bit different from other people, but what really sympathetic person is not a little mad?
—Isadora Duncan (1877–1927) American Dancer, Choreographer
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
Anger is a short madness.
—Dutch Proverb
A man of gladness seldom falls into madness.
—Unknown
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
The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad.
—Salvador Dali (1904–89) Spanish Painter
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