Quotes and Sayings about Madness
"The first draught serveth for health, the second for pleasure, the third for shame, and the fourth for madness."
- Anacharsis
(Related: Health, First, Madness, Pleasure, Shame)
"There is no great genius without a mixture of madness."
- Aristotle
(Related: Genius, Madness)
"There was never a genius without a tincture of madness."
- Aristotle
(Related: Genius, Madness)
"No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness."
- Aristotle
(Related: Soul, Madness)
"No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness."
- Aristotle
(Related: Genius, Madness)
"It seems to me madness to wake up in the morning and do something other than paint, considering that one may not wake up the following morning."
- Frank Auerbach
(Related: Madness, May)
"Actors are able to trick themselves into treating anything as if it's fantastic. It's a kind of madness really."
- Tom Baker
(Related: Actors, Madness)
"In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom!"
- J. G. Ballard
(Related: Madness, World)
"Love that is not madness is not love."
- Pedro Calderon de la Barca
(Related: Love, Madness)
"What is life? A madness. What is life? An illusion, a shadow, a story. And the greatest good is little enough; for all life is a dream, and dreams themselves are only dreams."
- Pedro Calderon de la Barca
(Related: Dreams, Life, Illusion, Madness, Shadow)
"When love is not madness, it is not love."
- Pedro Calderon de la Barca
(Related: Love, Madness)
"Rum, n. Generically, fiery liquors that produce madness in total abstainers."
- Ambrose Bierce
(Related: Madness)
"About half my designs are controlled fantasy, 15 percent are total madness and the rest are bread-and-butter designs."
- Manolo Blahnik
(Related: Fantasy, Madness, Rest)
"What a mysterious thing madness is. I have watched patients whose lips are forever sealed in a perpetual silence. They live, breathe, eat; the human form is there, but that something, which the body can live without, but which cannot exist without the body, was missing."
- Nellie Bly
(Related: Body, Madness, Silence)
"The great proof of madness is the disproportion of one's designs to one's means."
- Napoleon Bonaparte
(Related: Madness, Proof)
"But my doubt would not be overcome. Kierkegaard had declared that it was only to the consciousness of sin that Christianity was not horror or madness. For me it was sometimes both."
- Georg Brandes
(Related: Christianity, Consciousness, Doubt, Horror, Madness, Sin)
"The world has always gone through periods of madness so as to advance a bit on the road to reason."
- Hermann Broch
(Related: Madness, Reason, Road, World)
"Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could."
- William F. Buckley, Jr.
(Related: People, Harm, Madness, Prohibition, Value)
"Can a moment of madness make up for an age of consent?"
- Basil Bunting
(Related: Age, Madness)
"But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint."
- Edmund Burke
(Related: Wisdom, Virtue, Folly, Liberty, Madness, Restraint, Vice)
"You call it madness, but I call it love."
- Don Byas
(Related: Love, Madness)
"America has entered one of its periods of historic madness, but this is the worst I can remember."
- John Le Carre
(Related: America, Madness)
"Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be."
- Miguel de Cervantes
(Related: Life, Madness, May, Sanity)
"So long as man is protected by madness - he functions - and flourishes."
- Emile M. Cioran
(Related: Madness, Man)
"We derive our vitality from our store of madness."
- Emile M. Cioran
(Related: Madness, Vitality)
"The extreme limit of wisdom, that's what the public calls madness."
- Jean Cocteau
(Related: Wisdom, Extreme, Madness, Public)
"If this be not love, it is madness, and then it is pardonable."
- William Congreve
(Related: Love, Madness)
"It's a kind of madness in cosmopolitan cities now."
- Sean Connery
(Related: Cities, Madness, Now)
"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."
- David Cronenberg
(Related: Life, Chaos, Madness, Problems, Trying)
"It is madness to make fortune the mistress of events, because by herself she is nothing and is ruled by prudence."
- John Dryden
(Related: Events, Fortune, Madness, Nothing, Prudence)
"Great wits are sure to madness near allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide."
- John Dryden
(Related: Madness)
"I believe that always, or almost always, in all childhoods and in all the lives that follow them, the mother represents madness. Our mothers always remain the strangest, craziest people we've ever met."
- Marguerite Duras
(Related: Mother, People, Madness, Mothers)
"Help us to recognize your voice, help us not to be allured by the madness of the world, so that we may never fall away from you, O Lord Jesus Christ."
- Albrecht Durer
(Related: Christ, Help, Madness, May, Voice, World)
"Everybody's youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
(Related: Dream, Madness, Youth)
"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
(Related: Art, Time, Work, Truth, Madness)
"It is madness for sheep to talk peace with a wolf."
- Thomas Fuller
(Related: Peace, Madness, Sheep, Talk)
"The most beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes."
- Andre Gide
(Related: Madness, Reason)
"Only those things are beautiful which are inspired by madness and written by reason."
- Andre Gide
(Related: Madness, Reason)
"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked."
- Allen Ginsberg
(Related: Madness)
"Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness."
- Allen Ginsberg
(Related: Madness)
"I think we all have madness in us, it's just that I've realized mine and found a way to let it out."
- John Glover
(Related: Madness)
"The fact that New York continues in the face of all of the chaos, of the crime, of the madness, you just think that it would just pop and vanish, just explode."
- Spalding Gray
(Related: Chaos, Crime, Fact, Madness)
"Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation."
- Graham Greene
(Related: Fear, Madness, Therapy, Wonder, Writing)
"I'll give up this sort of touring madness certainly, but music-everything is based on music. No, I'll never stop my music."
- George Harrison
(Related: Music, Madness)
"Anger is a short madness."
- Horace
(Related: Anger, Madness)
"So reports of my madness, as they say, were greatly exaggerated. Not that I give a bugger either way."
- David Icke
(Related: Madness)
"We work n the dark - we do what we can - we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art."
- Henry James
(Related: Art, Work, Doubt, Madness, Passion, Rest)
"A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free."
- Nikos Kazantzakis
(Related: Madness, Needs)
"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
(Related: Death, Madness, May, Potential)
"Money is our madness, our vast collective madness."
- David Herbert Lawrence
(Related: Money, Madness)
"Of course in war all madnesses come out in a man, that is the fault of war not of a man or a nation."
- Frieda Lawrence
(Related: War, Fault, Man, Nation)
"There is a kind of euphoria of grief, a degree of madness."
- Nigella Lawson
(Related: Grief, Madness)
"I'm beginning to think that you should only be allowed to serve two terms, before madness sets in."
- Chris Lowe
(Related: Beginning, Madness)
"Eighty-six percent of the gun death of children under the age of 14 internationally is right here in the United States of America. It is madness."
- Nita Lowey
(Related: Age, Death, America, Children, Madness, Right, states, United)
"I went into photography because it seemed like the perfect vehicle for commenting on the madness of today's existence."
- Robert Mapplethorpe
(Related: Existence, Madness, Photography, Today)
"To put meaning in one's life may end in madness, But life without meaning is the torture Of restlessness and vague desire-It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid."
- Edgar Lee Masters
(Related: Life, Desire, End, Longing, Madness, May, Meaning, Sea)
"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
(Related: Madness, Profit)
"Our constancy, same might call it our madness, was necessary to wear down the oppressive forces of the old democracy which, in Spain, was a hundred years behind the times."
- Frederica Montseny
(Related: Constancy, Democracy, Madness, Old, Spain, Years)
"Howard Hughes was able to afford the luxury of madness, like a man who not only thinks he is Napoleon but hires an army to prove it."
- Ted Morgan
(Related: Army, Luxury, Madness, Man)
"All cities are mad: but the madness is gallant. All cities are beautiful: but the beauty is grim."
- Christopher Morley
(Related: Beauty, Cities, Madness)
"The courage of the poet is to keep ajar the door that leads into madness."
- Christopher Morley
(Related: Courage, Madness)
"But mathematics is the sister, as well as the servant, of the arts and is touched by the same madness and genius."
- Marston Morse
(Related: Sister, Genius, Madness, Mathematics)
"I don't think you can rely on Iran. I don't think you can rely on other radicals like the Taliban. They dispatched Al Qaida to bomb New York and Washington. What were they thinking? Were they that stupid? They weren't stupid. There is an irrationality there, and there is madness in this method."
- Benjamin Netanyahu
(Related: Madness, Thinking, Washington)
"I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people."
- Isaac Newton
(Related: People, Madness)
"Madness is rare in individuals - but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
(Related: Madness, Nations)
"What can everyone do? Praise and blame. This is human virtue, this is human madness."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
(Related: Virtue, Blame, Madness, Praise)
"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
(Related: Love, Madness, Reason)
"Television is actually closer to reality than anything in books. The madness of TV is the madness of human life."
- Camille Paglia
(Related: Life, Books, Madness, Reality, Television)
"Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness."
- Blaise Pascal
(Related: Men, Madness)
"Books have led some to learning and others to madness."
- Petrarch
(Related: Books, Learning, Madness)
"True, we love life, not because we are used to living, but because we are used to loving. There is always some madness in love, but there is also always some reason in madness."
- Petrarch
(Related: Love, Life, Living, Madness, Reason)
"Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence."
- Edgar Allan Poe
(Related: Intelligence, Science, Madness)
"Party-spirit at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few."
- Alexander Pope
(Related: Gain, Madness, Party)
"I find myself hoping a total end of all the unhappy divisions of mankind by party-spirit, which at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few."
- Alexander Pope
(Related: End, Gain, Madness, Mankind, Party)
"Afflicted by love's madness all are blind."
- Sextus Propertius
(Related: Love, Blind, Madness)
"On the steps is a machine-gun ready for action. The square is empty; only the streets that lead into it are jammed with people. It would be madness to go farther - the machine-gun is covering the square."
- Erich Maria Remarque
(Related: People, Action, Machine, Madness)
"I read The Old Curiosity Shop before I began Blackwood Farm. I was amazed at the utter madness in that book."
- Anne Rice
(Related: Curiosity, Madness, Old)
"Jealousy is bred in doubts. When those doubts change into certainties, then the passion either ceases or turns absolute madness."
- Francois de La Rochefoucauld
(Related: Change, Jealousy, Madness, Passion)
"Jealousy lives upon doubts. It becomes madness or ceases entirely as soon as we pass from doubt to certainty."
- Francois de La Rochefoucauld
(Related: Certainty, Doubt, Jealousy, Madness)
"What is madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance."
- Theodore Roethke
(Related: Soul, Circumstance, Madness, Nobility)
"It is madness to attempt to hold. In the first place the troops cannot do it and in the second place if they do not retreat they will be destroyed. I repeat that this order be rescinded or that you find someone else."
- Gerd von Rundstedt
(Related: First, Madness, Order, Troops, Will)
"With the introduction of agriculture mankind entered upon a long period of meanness, misery, and madness, from which they are only now being freed by the beneficent operation of the machine."
- Bertrand Russell
(Related: Agriculture, Being, Machine, Madness, Mankind, Misery, Now)
"Sanity calms, but madness is more interesting."
- John Russell
(Related: Madness, Sanity)
"Sanity is madness put to good use."
- George Santayana
(Related: Madness, Sanity)
"Nothing is so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness is it to be expecting evil before it comes."
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
(Related: Evil, Madness, Nothing)
"There is no great genius without some touch of madness."
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
(Related: Genius, Madness)
"Drunkenness is nothing but voluntary madness."
- Seneca
(Related: Madness, Nothing)
"A tavern is a place where madness is sold by the bottle."
- Jonathan Swift
(Related: Madness)
"For you to ask advice on the rules of love is no better than to ask advice on the rules of madness."
- Terence
(Related: Love, Advice, Madness, Rules)
"Anger is a momentary madness, so control your passion or it will control you."
- G. M. Trevelyan
(Related: Anger, Control, Madness, Passion, Will)
"A lot of people thought this dream must be madness, but we are not crazy."
- Gloria Trevi
(Related: Thought, People, Dream, Madness)
"A leader is one who, out of madness or goodness, volunteers to take upon himself the woe of the people. There are few men so foolish, hence the erratic quality of leadership in the world."
- John Updike
(Related: Leadership, Men, Quality, People, Goodness, Madness, World)
"Government is either organized benevolence or organized madness; its peculiar magnitude permits no shading."
- John Updike
(Related: Government, Benevolence, Madness)
"Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable."
- Voltaire
(Related: Optimism, Madness)
"The genius which runs to madness is no longer genius."
- Otto Weininger
(Related: Genius, Madness)
"You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it."
- Robin Williams
(Related: Madness)
"Warren Spector is amazing, and his team is as good as any in the business. Shame to see all the revenues from their game entangled with all the madness of the Dallas office."
- Mike Wilson
(Related: Business, Madness, Office, Shame)
"Pain is real when you get other people to believe in it. If no one believes in it but you, your pain is madness or hysteria."
- Naomi Wolf
(Related: People, Madness, Pain)
"Excess of grief for the dead is madness; for it is an injury to the living, and the dead know it not."
- Xenophon
(Related: Excess, Grief, Injury, Living, Madness)