#insanity

I said to him, "Shall I tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves? For I can tell you. I know of men who believe in themselves more colossally than Napoleon or Caesar. I know where flames the fixed star of certainty and success. I can guide you to the thrones of the Super-men. The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums. ↗

— G.K. Chesterton

#lunatic #men

Oh, and I certainly don't suffer from schizophrenia. I quite enjoy it. And so do I. ↗

— Emilie Autumn

#schizophrenia #suffering

We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe. ↗

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

#universe

To be mad is to feel with excruciating intensity the sadness and joy of a time which has not arrived or has already been. And to protect their delicate vision of that other time, madmen will justify their condition with touching loyalty, and surround it with a thousand distractive schemes. These schemes, in turn, drive them deeper and deeper into the darkness and light (which is their mortification and their reward), and confront them with a choice. They may either slacken and fall back, accepting the relief of a rational view and the approval of others, or they may push on, and, by falling, arise. When and if by their unforgivable stubbornness they finally burst through to worlds upon worlds of motionless light, they are no longer called afflicted or insane. They are called saints. ↗

— Mark Helprin

#loyalty

I lie on the floor, washed by nothing and hanging on. I cry at night. I am afraid of hearing voices, or a voice. I have come to the edge, of the land. I could get pushed over. ↗

— Margaret Atwood

#fear #insanity #sanity #voices #sanity

Where to look if you've lost your mind? ↗

— Bernard Malamud

#insanity #mind #sanity #sanity

Was everybody seeing this stuff and acting as though they weren't? Was insanity just a matter of dropping the act? ↗

— Susanna Kaysen

#sanity #sanity

Crazy people made him crazy. It was as if he personally resented them giving into madness - in part, because he so frequently labored to behave sanely. When some people gave up the labor of sanity, or failed at it, Garp suspected them of not trying hard enough. ↗

— John Irving

#sanity #sanity

There is, incidentally, no way of talking about cats that enables one to come off as a sane person. ↗

— Dan Greenberg

#dan-greenberg #insanity #sanity #sanity

Maybe he’s normal and we’re the crazy ones. Maybe everyone should talk to themselves. Maybe we’re all just afraid of what we’d say. ↗

— Katie Kacvinsky

#crazy #insane #insanity #sanity #sanity