Quotessence
Home / Topics / Insanity Quotes

Insanity Quotes

Browse 1280 quotes about Insanity.

Related topics

InsanePeopleIfsMadnessThinkingMenCrazyWorldKnowsInsanity And SanitySanityMadMindLifeMadness And InsanityWayFormMadness And SanityHumansLife And DeathWantDeathSaneGeniusReasonShouldFunnyKindWarFeelsMeanDifferentMental IllnessWellsMightRunningDefinition Of InsanityNeedsTryingYearsBelieveDefinitionsLittlesLooksMayPersonsResultsSaidSometimesDoeEndsI CanInspirationalLinesUseAsylumsChildrenCollectivesDiesFactsMatterRealSelfStillsWould BeBigsDiseaseDreamFacesFirstsIllnessLostLyingMadePlanetsReligionShowsSocietyAtheismCrazinessDepressionExpectingEyeGivingHandsHuman BeingsLawLongLoveRealitySufferingTwoWritingBehaviorCasesDoneFineIdeasIndividualInsane Asylummore

Insanity Quotes

“I must confess that I am deeply troubled. I fear that human beings are intent upon acting out a vast deathwish and that it lies with us now to make every effort to promote resistance to the insanity and brutality of policies which encompass the extermination of hundreds of millions of human beings.”

HumansLyingHuman BeingsEffortActingMillionsPolicyResistanceInsanityBrutalityExterminationActing Out
Book:The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell
Create image

“The psychical condition of men's minds may be compared with a set of bells close together, and so arranged that in the ordinary man a bell rings only when one beside it sounds, and the vibration lasts only a moment. In the genius, when a bell sounds it vibrates so strongly that it sets in action the whole series, and remains in action throughout life. The latter kind of movement often gives rise to extraordinary conditions and absurd impulses, that may last for weeks together and that form the basis of the supposed kinship of genius with insanity.”

MenGivingMindKindMayWholeMomentsActionTogetherLastsFormSoundWeekConditionsMovementGeniusOrdinaryBasesRemainsSeriesExtraordinaryRingsAbsurdImpulseInsanityLatterBellsVibrationsKinshipOrdinary ManVibrate
Author:Otto Weininger
Create image

“A genuine invention in the realm of ideas must first emerge as an abstruse and even partial concept? At first blusha new idea appearstobe verycloseto insanity because to be new it must reverse important basic beliefs and assumptions which, in turn, have been institutionalized and are administered by one or another kind of priesthood with a vested interest in an old idea.”

FirstsKindHas BeensImportantIdeasTurnsBeliefInterestConceptsGenuineInventionInsanityRealmsAssumptionReverseNew IdeasPriesthoodVested InterestsOld Ideas
Author:Arthur Miller
Create image

“It's probably hard for anyone looking at my landscapes today to realize that I was once regarded as a rebel, a dangerous influence; that I've been told I was on the verge of insanity, that my painting was nothing but meaningless daubs. Lawren Harris, the man most responsible for drawing the Group of Seven together, was accused of something perilously close to treason - his paintings, said his severest critics, were discouraging immigration.”

MenSaidHardTodayTogetherRealizingGroupsInfluenceDangerousHe ManPaintingCriticismResponsibleCriticsSevenDrawingImmigrationLandscapeInsanityRebelMeaninglessAccusedDiscouragingTreasonVerge
Author:A. Y. Jackson
Create image

“Chess, which exists predominantly in two dimensions, is one of the world's most difficult games. Three-dimensional chess is an invitation to insanity. But human relationships, even of the simplest order, are like a kind of four-dimensional chess, a game whose pieces and positions change subtly and inexorably between moves, whose players stare dumbly while their powerful positions deteriorate into hopeless predicaments and while improbable combinations suddenly become inevitable. To make matters worse, some games are open to any number of players, and all sides are expected to win.”

WorldHumansKindTwoMatterMovingOrderThreeGamesWinningDifficultSidesPowerfulNumbersPiecesFourPlayerPositionExpectedChessInevitableCombinationStaringInsanityDimensionsHopelessSimplestInvitationsHuman RelationsHuman RelationshipsImprobablePredicaments
Book:Time and the Art of Living
Create image

“Sometimes a god comes.... He brings a new way to do a thing, or a new thing to be done. A new kind of singing, or a new kind of death. He brings this across the bridge between the dream-time and the world-time. When he has done this, it is done. You cannot take things that exist in the world and try to drive them back into the dream, to hold them inside the dream with walls and pretenses. That is insanity. What is, is. There is no use pretending, now, that we do not know how to kill one another.”

KnowsWorldWayTryingKindSometimesDoneUseDreamKnow HowWallSingingBridgesInsanityPretendingNew ThingsNew WaysPretense
Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
Create image

“History is the same thing over and over again.”

QualityPrinciplesHistoryLittle BitMadnessInnovationInsanityBoredomDifferent ThingsSanityExpectingAgain And AgainLinkedSlogansSkepticalAbsolutely NothingMind BlowingCreativity And InnovationHealth And FitnessSame MistakesBusiness InnovationFitness MotivationalCrazy ThingsInnovation And BusinessNarcoticsMasqueradeFeeling SorryMadness And SanityIdeas And InnovationInsanity And SanityMind OpeningBores YouHealth FitnessMadness And InsanitySpecial TalentsOpening Your MindGreat ResultsInspirational Health And FitnessThinking DifferentlyLove Life InspirationalKnowledge ExperienceFilm ActingDefinition Of InsanityI Love My ParentsThinking The SameSame ThinkingSaying The Same Thing Over And OverLessons Of The PastTemporary InsanityLeast ExpectingExpecting Things
Author:Woody Allen
Create image

“Is not this insanity plea becoming rather common? Is it not so common that the reader confidently expects to see it offered in every criminal case that comes before the courts?... Really, what we want now, is not laws against crime, but a law against insanity.”

WantLawCommonCasesCrimeReaderBecomingCourtCriminalsInsanity
Book:The Complete Works of Mark Twain: All 13 Novels, Short Stories, Poetry and Essays
Create image

“A culture-bearing book, like a mule, bears the culture on its back. No one should sit down to write one deliberately. Culture-bearing books appear almost accidentally, like a sudden surge in the stock market. There are books of high quality that are a part of the culture, but that is not the same. They are a part of it. They aren't carrying it anywhere. They may talk about insanity sympathetically, for example, because that's the standard cultural attitude. But they don't carry any suggestion that insanity might be something other than sickness or degeneracy.”

ShouldWritingMayBookMightCultureAttitudeQualityExampleBearsStandardsIndependenceInsanitySicknessSuggestionsHigh QualityMules
Author:Robert M. Pirsig
Create image

“I think this fear of insanity is comparable to the fear people once had of falling off the edge of the world. Or the fear of heretics...What's happening is that each year our old flat earth of conventional reason becomes less and less adequate to handle the experiences we have and this is creating wide-spread feelings of topsy-turviness. As a result we're getting more and more people in irrational areas of thought...occultism, mysticism, drug changes and the like...because they feel an inadequacy in classical reason to handle what they know are real experiences.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsWorldFeelsYearsRealReasonFeelingsEarthFallResultsDrugCreatingHappeningsAreasEdgesSpreadWideHandleInsanityMysticismFlatsConventionalIrrationalRationalityAdequateHereticInadequacyFalling OffZen Motorcycle MaintenanceEdge Of The World
Author:Robert M. Pirsig
Create image