Quotations about Sanity

Might we not say to the confused voices which sometimes arise from the depths of our being: "Ladies, be so kind as to speak only four at a time?" ~Madame Swetchine


A man who is "of sound mind" is one who keeps the inner madman under lock and key. ~Paul Valéry, Mauvaises pensées et autres, 1942


Sanity is madness put to good uses. ~George Santayana, Little Essays


I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it. ~Author Unknown


Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change. ~Author Unknown


The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you. ~Rita Mae Brown


See, the human mind is kind of like... a piñata. When it breaks open, there's a lot of surprises inside. Once you get the piñata perspective, you see that losing your mind can be a peak experience. ~Jane Wagner


Madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be break-through. ~R.D. Laing, The Politics of Experience


You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it. ~Robin Williams


Temporary madness may be necessary in some cases, to cleanse and renovate the mind; just as a fit of illness is to carry off the humours of the body. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827


I haven't lost my mind; I have a tape back-up somewhere. ~Author Unknown


I'll be the in to your sane. ~Numan


I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw. ~William Shakespeare


Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked. ~Oliver W. Holmes, Sr., The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, 1858


I have my own little world, but it's okay - they know me here. ~Author Unknown


No man is sane who does not know how to be insane on proper occasions. ~Henry Ward Beecher


Madness is rare in individuals - but in groups, political parties, nations, and eras it's the rule. ~Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 1886


A man might pass for insane who should see things as they are. ~William Ellery Channing


I feel like a fugitive from the law of averages. ~William H. Mauldin


You should listen to your heart, and not the voices in your head. ~Matt Groening, The Simpsons, spoken by the character Marge Simpson


There is a pleasure sure
In being mad which none but madmen know.
~John Dryden, The Spanish Friar, 1681


If you are physically sick, you can elicit the interest of a battery of physicians; but if you are mentally sick, you are lucky if the janitor comes around. ~Martin H. Fischer


No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness. ~Aristotle


There is a bit of insanity in dancing that does everybody a great deal of good. ~Edwin Denby


Sanity is very rare: every man almost, and every woman, has a dash of madness. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


A little madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King.
~Emily Dickinson


Everything great in the world is done by neurotics; they alone founded our religions and created our masterpieces. ~Marcel Proust


Today I felt pass over me
A breath of wind from the wings of madness.
~Charles Baudelaire


Most men are within a finger's breadth of being mad. ~Diogenes


When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained. ~Mark Twain


There is no great genius without some touch of madness. ~Lucius Annaeus Seneca, "On Tranquillity of the Mind," Moral Essays


I suppose it is much more comfortable to be mad and know it, than to be sane and have one's doubts. ~G.B. Burgin