Quotes about Madness

When love is not madness, it is not love.

I think the big danger of madness is not madness itself, but the habit of madness.  What I discovered during the time I spent in the asylum is that I could choose madness and spend my whole life without working, doing nothing, pretending to be mad.  It was a very strong temptation..

'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat:  'we're all mad here. I'm mad.  You're mad.'
'How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
'You must be,' said the Cat, 'or you wouldn't have come here.'

A man needs a little madness, or else he never dares cut the rope and be free.

Art will remain the most astonishing activity of mankind born out of struggle between wisdom and madness, between dream and reality in our mind.

"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness." ~Friedrich Nietzsche, "On Reading and Writing" German philosopher (1844 - 1900)

"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness." ~Friedrich Nietzsche, "On Reading and Writing" German philosopher (1844 - 1900)

Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs. Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes. Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers' tears. What is it else? A madness most discreet, a choking gall and a preserving sweet.

You know you've completely descended into madness when the matter of shampoo has ascended to philosophical heights.

I know I missed the boat called perfection
but my errors are portals of discovery
and there are times
when a little madness sets me free.

It's better to think of my life like that - part miracle, part madness.  It's better if I accept that I can't control any of the things that matter.  My life is a trail of shipwrecks and set-sails.  There are no arrivals, no destinations, there are only sandbanks and shipwreck; then another boat, another tide. 

Courage is the most beautiful kind of madness.

To journey into our paranoid thoughts and feelings without getting significantly paranoid is basic sanity in the courageous crunch. To go into our madness without becoming unhinged is a sign of relatively advanced development. To enter our pain without turning it into suffering is a gift to all beings. To pass into our lovelessness without losing heart is a great art, out of which healing cannot help but arise. To move into the Unknown without having to know what’s going to happen once we’re “there” is real freedom in the making. The way toward basic sanity is not that of rising above, trying to transcend, marginalizing, or otherwise avoiding our insanity, but rather that of going into and through our insanity, letting all that arises, however hellish or scary, awaken us to who and what we really are.

When it's madness to hope, perhaps one's only hope lies in madness.

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

Dancing in our heads...

We dance for laughter, we dance for tears, we dance for madness, we dance for fears, we dance for hopes, we dance for screams, we are the dancers, we create the dreams.

-- Albert Einstein

Madness is rare in individuals--but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule.

"Those who belong to this small class have tasted how sweet and blessed a posession philosophy is, and have also seen enough of the madness of the multitude; and they know that no politician is honest, nor is there any champion of justice at whose side they may fight and be saved. Such an one may be compared to a man who has fallen among wild beasts-- he will not join in the wickedness of his fellows, but neither is he able singly to resist all their fierce natures, and therefore seeing that he would be of no use to the State or to his friends, and reflecting that he would have to throw away his life without doing any good either to himself or others, he holds his peace, and goes his own way. He is like one who, in the storm of dust and sleet which the driving wind hurries along, retires under the shelter of a wall; and seeing the rest of mankind full of wickedness, he is content, if only he can live his own life and be pure from evil or unrighteousness, and depart in peace and good-will, with bright hopes."

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 always some reason in madness.

No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.

You have everything but one thing: madness.  A man needs a little madness or else - he never dares cut the rope and be free.

We need others. We need others to love and we need to be loved by them. There is no doubt that without it, we too, like the infant left alone, would cease to grow, cease to develop, choose madness and even death.

I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous boy, The sleepless soul that perished in his pride; Of him who walked in glory and in joy, Following his plough, along the mountain-side. By our own spirits we are deified; We Poets in our youth begin in gladness, But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.

ROSS You must have patience, madam. LADY MACDUFF He had none: His flight was madness: when our actions do not, Our fears do make us traitors.

Though this be madness, yet there is method in't. Will you walk out of the air, my lord?

. . . your noble son is mad: Mad call I it; for, to define true madness, What is't but to be nothing else but mad? But let that go.

ROSALIND But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak? ORLANDO Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much. ROSALIND Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do: and the reason why they are not so punished and cured is, that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too.

ROMEO Why, such is love's transgression. Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast, Which thou wilt propagate, to have it prest With more of thine: this love that thou hast shown Doth add more grief to too much of mine own. Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs; Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes; Being vex'd a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears: What is it else? a madness most discreet, A choking gall and a preserving sweet.

Love is . . . a madness most discreet

Fear not, dear cousin. In madness there is great power