100 Quotes About Sanity

Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked. Good mental machinery ought to break its own wheels and levers, if anything is thrust among them suddenly which tends to stop them or reverse their motion. A weak mind does not accumulate force enough to hurt itself; stupidity often saves a man from going mad. Unknown

Too much sanity may be madness – and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be! Dale Wasserman

If you think anyone is sane you just don't know enough about them. Christopher Moore

For, what is order without common sense, but Bedlam’s front parlor? What is imagination without common sense, but the aspiration to out-dandy Beau Brummell with nothing but a bit of faded muslin and a limp cravat? What is Creation without common sense, but a scandalous thing without form or function, like a matron with half a dozen unattached daughters? And God looked upon the Creation in all its delightful multiplicity, and saw that, all in all, it was quite Amiable. Vera Nazarian

Stanley forced a smile to his lips at the memory of the onesided romance; it was silly, after all, a stupid childhood crush. Who’d fall in love with a fictional character? That was the kind of thing you laughed about as an adult. Or at least Harriet had thought so. He couldn’t quite do it, though. Couldn’t quite see it as a joke. It had felt too real, too raw and wild and fierce, for him todismiss it even now. It was love, of a sort, stunted and unformed as it was. For a time, it had kept him sane. Amelia Mangan

There was no public to humiliate him here. They already knew he was a lunatic. They expected it. He could burst into howls of insanity, and they would only smile those gentle smiles at him and wrestle him into the chains. Laura Kinsale

Here lies a gentleman bold Who was so very brave He went to lengths untold, And on the brink of the grave Death had on him no hold. By the world he set small store-- He frightened it to the core-- Yet somehow, by Fate's plan, Though he'd lived a crazy man, When he died he was sane once more. Unknown

It was the essence of life to disbelieve in death for one's self, to act as if life would continue forever. And life had to act also as if little issues were big ones. To take a realistic attitude toward life and death meant that one lapsed into unreality. Into insanity. It was ironic that the only way to keep one's sanity was to ignore that one was in an insane world or to act as if the world were sane. Unknown

I need to ask, are you afraid of spiders?" Nicholas blinked, suddenly caught off guard, "Yes, I'm afraid of spiders."" Were you always?"" What are you, a psychiatrist?" Pritam took a breath. He could feel Laine's eyes on him, appraising his line of questioning." Is it possible that the trauma of losing your best friend as a child and the trauma of losing your wife as an adult and the trauma of seeing Laine's husband take his life in front of you just recently.." Pritam shrugged and raised his palms, "You see where I'm going?" Nicholas looked at Laine. She watched back. Her gray eyes missed nothing." Sure, " agreed Nicholas, standing. "And my sister's nuts, too, and we both like imagining that little white dogs are big nasty spiders because our daddy died and we never got enough cuddles."" Your father died?" asked Laine. "When?""Who cares?" Pritam sighed. "You must see this from our point of - ""I'd love to! " snapped Nicholas. "I'd love to see it from your point of view, because mine is not that much fun! It's insane! It's insane that I see dead people, Pritam! It's insane that this, " he flicked out the sardonyx necklace, "stopped me from kidnapping a little girl! "" That's what you believe, " Pritam said carefully." That's what I fucking believe! " Nicholas stabbed his finger through the air at the dead bird talisman lying slack on the coffee table. Stephen M. Irwin

As we all know, as if forever exploiting or attempting to exploit each other were not enough, a group of sane human beings who have just reached the end of a war against a common enemy of theirs will sooner or later start or continue killing and/or fighting against each other. Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Most sane human beings who have managed to attain and retain fame each uses it to dramatically increase their name’s chances of being remembered until Jesus comes back, since their heart cannot do what they consciously or unconsciously lust for, that is to say, for it to beat until Jesus returns. Mokokoma Mokhonoana

But maybe that isn't possible. Maybe the mind of the majority is always the healthy mind, simply by virtue of its numbers. Maybe it's the definition of madness to believe I'm right and everyone else if wrong, to find my thoughts rational and reasonable when almost the entire world finds them damaged and flawed. Stacey Jay

At present nothing is possible except to extend the area of sanity little by little. We cannot act collectively. We can only spread our knowledge outwards from individual to individual, generation after generation. George Orwell

You can't compare men or women with mental disorders to the normal expectations of men and women in without mental orders. Your dealing with symptoms and until you understand that you will always try to find sane explanations among insane behaviors. You will always have unreachable standards and disappointments. If you want to survive in a marriage to someone that has a disorder you have to judge their actions from a place of realistic expectations in regards to that person's upbringing and diagnosis. . Shannon L. Alder

Of all the things a man may do, sleep probably contributes most to keeping him sane. It puts brackets about each day. If you do something foolish or painful today, you get irritated if somebody mentions it, today. If it happened yesterday, though, you can nod or chuckle, as the case may be. You've crossed through nothingness or dream to another island in Time. Roger Zelazny

People don't deserve the restraint we show by not going into delirium in front of them. Unknown

Melancholy suicide. –This is connected with a general state of extreme depression and exaggerated sadness, causing the patient no longer to realize sanely the bonds which connect him with people and things about him. Pleasures no longer attract; Unknown

The world brazenly touts freedom as both the inalienable right and morally liberating justification to mindlessly play in the filth that lies all around me. And the slight bit of sanity that yet remains within me asks, ‘what raging madness would prompt me to incessantly wallow in the very things that will eventually swallow me? Craig D. Lounsbrough

I have treated many artists. There are among them many neurotics, so many that one finally comes to believe that one cannot be an artist without being neurotic. Again I found in them that inner conflict which is characteristic of modern man: the conflict between a right intuition (namely, that their vocation has fundamental importance for the destiny of humanity) and a false idea (namely, that art is superfluous luxury). Paul Tournier

Well, Daddy, I used to believe that artists went crazy in the process of creating the beautiful works of art that kept society sane. Nowadays, though, artists make intentionally ugly art that’s only supposed to reflect society rather than inspire it. So I guess we’re all loony together now, loony rats in the shithouse of commercialism. Tom Robbins

Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence— whether much that is glorious— whether all that is profound— does not spring from disease of thought— from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect. Edgar Allan Poe

The history of your world is filled with the voice of the victor, the voice of power, although it was not always a voice of sanity, by any means. Barbara Marciniak

... I grant you that anyone who pokes around in history long enough may well go mad. Elizabeth Kostova

Inside every sane person there's a madman struggling to get out, " said the shopkeeper. "That's what I've always thought. No one goes mad quicker than a totally sane person. Terry Pratchett

Humanity can be divided into madmen and cowards. My personal tragedy is in being born into a world where sanity is held to be a character flaw. Mark Lawrence

The human race will last. Everywhere and forever, for it will never be sane and only insanity is divine. Only the mad destroy themselves and all they have wrought. And only the phoenix lives forever. Fredric Brown

I am insane, does that surprise you? Ha! I think my mind is crumbling, just like crackers. If I had written five minutes earlier I would have wept, if I had written ten minutes earlier I would have told you to leave me alone, if I wait any longer I won’t write at all. @ Neuroticdream Tumblr

WHO AM I?I have seven heavenly panels Leading up to a pointed sphere I’m multidimensional like a crystal And my center is never clear. I’m an inventor and pioneer. A mentor to my peers. But I'm not as sound as my shell reveals, Because I’m tormented by my fears -That may appear to be grounded But my insides are filled with tears. And the sadness is well-founded, From years and years Of traumatic experiences Compounded In the most demented Atmospheres. I talk but feel like nobody hears. Has reason disappeared? And, God, are you near? This is Giza’s 7th light force And I'm asking you to interfere. I can no longer walk amongst the blind and dead With open eyes and ears. I’m trying to maintain my sanity And to straighten up my veneer As I roll amongst the growing calamities Flowing on Earth’s severely trashed Frontier. Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun (2010). Suzy Kassem

Kaysen elaborates through parts of the book on her thoughts about how mental illness is treated. She explains that families who are willing to pay the rather high costs of hospitalization do so to prove their own sanity. Once one member of the family is hospitalized, it becomes easier for the rest of the family to distance themselves from the problem and to create a clear boundary between the sane and the insane. Recognizing a family member or friend as insane makes others around them, says Kaysen, compare themselves to that individual. Hospitalization allows for distance from this questioning of self that makes us so uncomfortable. Her view that mental illness often includes the entire family means the hospitalized family member becomes an excuse for other family members not to look at their own problems. This explains the willingness to pay the high financial costs of hospitalization. . Susanna Kaysen

Where to look if you've lost your mind? Bernard Malamud

The concept of dreaming is known to the waking mind but to the dreamer there is no waking, no real world, no sanity; there is only the screaming bedlam of sleep. Stephen King

You never know what lurks just beneath the surface of my fragile sanity. Ashly Lorenzana

I will scream as the sanity leaves my mind forever. I will scream...but there is no one there to hear me. Stephen King

I felt a Cleaving in my Mind–As if my Brain had split– I tried to match it– Seam by Seam–But could not make it fit. The thought behind, I strove to join Unto the thought before– But Sequence ravelled out of SoundLike Balls–upon a Floor. Emily Dickinson

We rode in silence, I think all of us wondering what was behind the flowery wallpaper our perceptions had always pasted on the unknown. All the things the mind won't allow us to see, to protect our sanity, or our soul, or maybe just to keep the shit out of our pants. David Wong

You think you're losing your mind, but do keep in mind, as long as you may, that the ability to go on thinking such a thing means it's not all gone. Criss Jami

Sometimes I feel like I’m losing my mind, ” she said with a hintof sadness.“ You lost your mind a long time ago, ” he said seriously. She looked at him with indignation. “That’s a compliment for anyone who knows the freedom and clarity of losing their mind, ” he reaffirmed her. Daniel J. Rice

But how sane can the mind really be if it doesn't even know its own depth? A.R.H

The mountains knew the definition of freedom. They provided a place where he could find his mind. Daniel J. Rice

When the whole world is crazy, it doesn't pay to be sane. Terry Goodkind

People who develop the habit of thinking of themselves as world citizens are fulfilling the first requirement of sanity in our time. Norman Cousins

Minds that have withered into psychosis are far more terrifying than any character of fiction. Christian Baloga

We want a few mad people now. See where the sane ones have landed us! George Bernard Shaw

Nothing can be more slightly defined than the line of demarcation between sanity and insanity .. Make the definition too narrow, it becomes meaningless; make it too wide, and the whole human race becomes involved in the dragnet. In strictness we are all mad when we give way to passion, to prejudice, to vice, to vanity; but if all the passionate, prejudiced and vain people were to be locked up as lunatics, who is to keep the key to the as . Kate Summerscale

Messy love is better than none. I guess. I'm no authorityon sane living. Margaret Atwood

Sometimes you have to go a little crazy before you can find sanity. I think I'm close. Tawny Lara

It might come a time to not follow your passion, so to speak, although it must be prioritized. It may be the case that your passion will serve as the medic, your peace of mind, alongside a higher calling, with your higher calling being the point man. Criss Jami

One person's craziness is another person's reality. Tim Burton

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality. Shirley Jackson

Compared to bipolar's magic, reality seems a raw deal. It's not just the boredom that makes recovery so difficult, it's the slow dawning pain that comes with sanity - the realization of illnesss, the humiliating scenes, the blown money and friendships and confidence. Depression seems almost inevitable. The pendulum swings back from transcendence in shards, a bloody, dangerous mess. Crazy high is better than crazy low. So we gamble, dump the pills, and stick it to the control freaks and doctors. They don't understand, we say. They just don't get it. They'll never be artists. David Lovelace

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, but some, to dream. Shirley Jackson

No validation of our rationality - of our very sanity - can be accomplished using our rationality itself. How can a person operating within a system of beliefs, including beliefs about beliefs, get outside that system to determine whether it is rational? If your entire system becomes infected with madness, including the very rules by which you reason, then how can you ever reason your way out of your madness? . Rebecca Goldstein

One concrete way in which we all landscape our sanity is by having our experience of reality confirmed by others. When our experience of reality is disconfirmed by others, our confidence in our own sanity can be undermined. (page 125, Chapter 9, Graeme Galton) Graeme Galton

The holiness of solitude is the gift of creativity. Lailah Gifty Akita

The moment her hymen was plucked from her body in the wilderness, Her soul was taken from sanity. Roman Payne

In the 1950s at least less was expected of women. Now we're supposed to build a career, build a home, be the supermum that every child deserves, the perfect wife, meet the demands of elderly parents, and still stay sane. Sara Sheridan

That millions of people share the same forms of mental pathology does not make these people sane. Erich Fromm

Our society tends to regard as a sickness any mode of thought or behavior that is inconvenient for the system and this is plausible because when an individual doesn't fit into the system it causes pain to the individual as well as problems for the system. Thus the manipulation of an individual to adjust him to the system is seen as a cure for a sickness and therefore as good. Theodore J. Kaczynski

If I'm all alone, then the standard for sanity is up to me entirely. Susan Wiggs

The "pathology of normalcy" rarely deteriorates to graver forms of mental illness because society produces the antidote against such deterioration. When pathological processes become socially patterned, they lose their individual character. On the contrary, the sick individual finds himself at home with all other similarly sick individuals. The whole culture is geared to this kind of pathology and arranged the means to give satisfactions which fit the pathology. The result is that the average individual does not experience the separateness and isolation the fully schizophrenic person feels. He feels at ease among those who suffer from the same deformation, in fact, it is the fully sane person who feels isolated in the insane society - and he may suffer so much from the incapacity to communicate that it is he who may become psychotic. Erich Fromm