Quotes About Madness

Madness, provided it comes as the gift of heaven, is the channel by which we receive the greatest blessings... the men of old who gave things their names saw no disgrace or reproach in madness; otherwise they would not have connected it with the name of the noblest of arts, the art of discerning the future, and called it the manic art... So, according to the evidence provided by our ancestors, madness is a nobler thing than sober sense... madness comes from God, whereas sober sense is merely human.

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.

If he waits for the ideal moment, he will never set off; he requires a touch of madness to take the next step. The warrior uses that touch of madness. For - in both love and war - it is impossible to foresee everything.

Be careful how you suggest things to me. For there is in me a madness which goes beyond martyrdom, the madness of an utterly idle man.

Madness is confusion of levels of fact. . . . Madness is not seeing visions but confusing levels.

The typhoon came out of the sea first as a deep hollow roar. ... I was surrounded by the madness, the unreason, of uncontrolled, undisciplined energy. None of this made any sense. It was worse than useless - it was nature destroying its own creation - its own self. To create by the long process of growth and then to destroy by a fit of wild emotion - was this not madness, was this not unreason?

Madness is locked beneath. It goes into tissues, is swallowed by the cells. The cells go mad. Cancer is their flag. Cancer is thegrowth of madness denied.

Writers, especially poets, are particularly prone to madness. There exists a striking association between creativity and manic depression. Why are more creative people prone to madness? They have more than average amounts of energies and abilities to see things in a fresh and original way—then because they also have depression, I think they’re more in touch with human suffering.

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.

Enough madness? Enough? And how do you measure madness? - The Joker

I marvel with distress that in 2015 we are fighting the vaccination wars. It is deeply disturbing that people who should be able to weigh discredited so-called studies instead believe garbage, and so are willing to endanger their children and others. I sincerely hope this madness burns itself out before a lot more people get hurt.

But what is madness, if not being able to control your own mind?

The point is it is amazing that the generations have joined in the Beatle madness and love the music. Who knew?

That was madness. You're never going to bring one of those down with a handgun.

I think we all have a little bit of that beautiful madness that keeps us walking when everything around us is so insanely sane.

Inspiration needs disease, injury, madness.

If they [Plato and Aristotle] wrote about politics it was as if to lay down rules for a madhouse. And if they pretended to treat it as something really important it was because they knew that the madmen they were talking to believed themselves to be kings and emperors. They humored these beliefs in order to calm down their madness with as little harm as possible.

I believe I am quite amiable and affable and quite fair, and I've rarely worked with people who are the opposite. Moodiness scares me. What gets to me is unkindness. Madness. Unwarranted cruelty through words. People who scream and shout at work. I hate confrontation and violence. I've done it in the past and I don't want to do it again. I guess I want a perfect world.

I don't carry the burden of the past or the madness of the future. I live in the present.

He who without the Muse's madness in his soul comes knocking at the door of poesy and thinks that art will make him anything fit to be called a poet, finds that the poetry which he indites in his sober senses is beaten hollow by the poetry of madmen.

Everybody's a mad scientist, and life is their lab. We're all trying to experiment to find a way to live, to solve problems, to fend off madness and chaos.

Racing and hunting excite man's heart to madness.

There is something to be said for jealousy, because it only designs the preservation of some good which we either have or think wehave a right to. But envy is a raging madness that cannot bear the wealth or fortune of others.

Maybe the greatest madness is to see life as it is rather than what it could be.

What is madness To those who only observe, is often wisdom To those to whom it happens.

In madness, I thought I was the most important person in the world.

It's not the one thing nor the other that leads to madness, but the space in between.

Madness and genius are two sides to the same coin.

It is madness and a contradiction to expect that things which were never yet performed should be effected, except by means hitherto untried.

Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring. When it comes down to it, I let them think what they want. If they care enough to bother with what I do, then I'm already better than them anyways.

Life without utopia is suffocating, for the multitude at least: threatened otherwise with petrifaction, the world must have a new madness.

I'm beginning to think that you should only be allowed to serve two terms, before madness sets in.

Of course in war all madness's come out in a man. That is the fault of war not of a man or a nation.

Anger is a momentary madness.

Every great genius has an admixture of madness.

Zaphod felt he was teetering on the edge of madness and wondered if he shouldn't just jump over and have done with it.

We swung between madness and suicide ... it was beautiful!

A body seriously out of equilibrium, either with itself or with its environment, perishes outright. Not so a mind. Madness and suffering can set themselves no limit.

Love is madness, and lust is poison.

Like madness, is the glory of this life.

So much love, too much love, it is our madness, it is rotting us out, exploding us like dandelion polls.

Because we are limited in our knowledge, even the sanest of us are slightly insane. Our limitations are a kind of madness, and we can only choose to deny we are mad, and so descend into a dark spiral of total insanity, or accept we are mad and embark on a quest to regain our true and wholesome sanity

When you complain, you make yourself a victim. Leave the situation, change the situation or accept it, all else is madness.

Doubt … is an illness that comes from knowledge and leads to madness.

Just as it would be madness to settle on medical treatment for the body of a person by taking an opinion poll of the neighbors, so it is irrational to prescribe for the body politic by polling the opinions of the people at large.

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

... there is wisdom in madness and strong probability of truth in all accusations, for people are complete, and everyone is capable of everything.

As soon as reality breaks, as soon as we're separated from the phsical world, the cracks begin to appear in our minds. And through them seeps the madness that has always been there, flowing into your skull like a liquid nightmare.