Insanity

"I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity."

"I was feeling like mad by the melody of birds singing out of tune in the settlements where travels lose their own destinations."

"Without asking anybody’s advice I turned myself insane."

"In how many minds should I go crazy? whom should I ask?"

"I believed all along, one day everyone would go mad just to see me sane."

"In the Puranas it was predicted that toward the end of Kali Yuga humanity would be driven to acts of madness. It is very dangerous that people do not recognize this state, for while it is possible to cure a patient who does not resist treatment, if he struggles against it the beneficial effects of the medicine will be diminished. But how do you explain to people that their leaders and their teachers are insane? ...such mental confusion fully corresponds with the end of Kali Yuga... Most people hate the messenger who brings knowledge. ... Let them at least remember the warning that humanity is acting insanely. The Thinker warned, “Do not fall into madness.”'"

"I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff— I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy."

"Mental soundness is merged in unsoundness by degrees of decadence which are so small as to be practically inappreciable"

"There is no great genius without some touch of madness."

"In physics, we use the same laws to explain why airplanes fly, and why they crash. In psychiatry, we use one set of laws to explain sane behaviour, which we attribute to reasons (choices), and another set of laws to explain insane behaviour, which we attribute to causes (diseases). Thomas Szasz Mental illness: psychiatry's phlogiston. October 2001"

"The only difference between the Sane and the Insane, is IN and yet within this world, the Sane have the power to have the Insane locked up. Hunter S. Thompson"

"Only people who are in a deeply negative state, who feel very bad indeed, would create such a reality as a reflection of how they feel. Now they are engaged in destroying nature and the planet that sustains them. Unbelievable but true. Humans are a dangerously insane and very sick species. That's not a judgment. It's a fact. It is also a fact that the sanity is there underneath the madness. Healing and redemption are available right now."

"See if you can catch yourself complaining, in either speech or thought, about a situation you find yourself in, what other people do or say, your surroundings, your life situation, even the weather. To complain is always non-acceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness."

"Most humans are still in the grip of the egoic mode of consciousness: identified with their mind and run by their mind. If they do not free themselves from their mind in time, they will be destroyed by it. They will experience increasing confusion, conflict, violence, illness, despair, madness. Egoic mind has become like a sinking ship. If you don't get off, you will go down with it. The collective egoic mind is the most dangerously insane and destructive entity ever to inhabit this planet."

"If it weren't for alcohol, tranquilizers, antidepressants, as well as the illegal drugs, which are all consumed in vast quantities, the insanity of the human mind would become even more glaringly obvious than it is already. I believe that, if deprived of their drugs, a large part of the population would become a danger to themselves and others. These drugs, of course, simply keep you stuck in dysfunction. Their widespread use only delays the breakdown of the old mind structures and the emergence of higher consciousness. While individual users may get some relief from the daily torture inflicted on them by their minds, they are prevented from generating enough conscious presence to rise above thought and so find true liberation."

"If a word doesn't work for you anymore, then drop it and replace it with one that does work. If you don't like the word sin, then call it unconsciousness or insanity. That may get you closer to the truth, the reality behind the word, than a long-misused word like sin, and leaves little room for guilt."

"Open your eyes and see the fear, the despair, the greed, and the violence that are all-pervasive. See the heinous cruelty and suffering on an unimaginable scale that humans have inflicted and continue to inflict on each other as well as on other life forms on the planet. You don't need to condemn. Just observe. That is sin. That is insanity."

"If you are trapped in a nightmare you will probably be more strongly motivated to awaken than someone who is just caught in the ups and downs of an ordinary dream."

"Once you have identified with some form of negativity, you do not want to let go, and on a deeply unconscious level, you do not want positive change. It would threaten your identity as a depressed, angry, or hard-done-by person. You will then ignore, deny or sabotage the positive in your life. This is a common phenomenon. It is also insane."

"All inner resistance is experienced as negativity in one form or another. All negativity is resistance. In this context, the two words are almost synonymous. Negativity ranges from irritation or impatience to fierce anger, from a depressed mood or sullen resentment to suicidal despair. Sometimes the resistance triggers the emotional pain-body, in which case even a minor situation may produce intense negativity, such as anger, depression, or deep grief. The ego believes that through negativity it can manipulate reality and get what it wants. It believes that through it, it can attract a desirable condition or dissolve an undesirable one."

"The Arising New Consciousness. Most ancient religions and spiritual traditions share the common insight – that our “normal” state of mind is marred by a fundamental defect. However, out of this insight into the nature of the human condition – we may call it the bad news – arises a second insight: the good news of the possibility of a radical transformation of human consciousness. In Hindu teachings (and sometimes in Buddhism also), this transformation is called enlightenment. In the teachings of Jesus, it is salvation, and in Buddhism, it is the end of suffering. Liberation and awakening are other terms used to describe this transformation."

"The greatest achievement of humanity is not its works of art, science, or technology, but the recognition of its own dysfunction, its own madness. In the distant past, this recognition already came to a few individuals. A man called Gautama Siddhartha, who lived 2,600 years ago in India, was perhaps the first who saw it with absolute clarity. Later the title Buddha was conferred upon him. Buddha means “the awakened one.” At abut the same time, another of humanity’s early awakened teachers emerged in China. His name was Lao Tzu. He left a record of his teaching in the form of one of the most profound spiritual books ever written, the Tao Te Ching. To recognize one’s own insanity, is of course, the arising of sanity, the beginning of healing and transcendence."

"Until now, human intelligence, which is no more than a minute aspect of universal intelligence, has been distorted and misused by the ego. I call that “intelligence in the service of madness.” Splitting the atom requires great intelligence. Using that intelligence for building and stockpiling atom bombs is insane or at best extremely unintelligent. Stupidity is relatively harmless, but intelligent stupidity is highly dangerous. This intelligent stupidity, for which one could find countless obvious examples, is threatening our survival as a species."

"“I am afraid,” said Memnon, “that our little terraqueous globe here is the madhouse of those hundred thousand millions of worlds of which your lordship does me the honor to speak.”"

"And thus also in Conversation he would say [...] That he knew not what to make of Providence, but by looking upon this World as a sort of Bedlam. Which minds me of a Story I have heard of One enquiring the way to Bedlam: To which the Other reply'd; If you mean Great Bedlam, you are now in it; but if you mean Little Bedlam, that is the way to it."

"We might liken the 'two selves' to Laurel and Hardy. Ollie is the objective mind, 'you'. Stan is the subjective mind, the 'hidden you'. But Stan happens to be in control of your energy supply. So if you wake up feeling low and discouraged, you (Ollie) tend to transmit your depression to Stan, who fails to send you energy, which makes you feel lower than ever. This vicious circle is the real cause of most mental illness."

"Like men condemned to thunderbolts, Who, ere the blow, become mere dolts."

"Much madness is divinest sense To a discerning eye; Much sense the starkest madness. 'Tis the majority In this, as all, prevails Assent, and you are sane; Demur,—you're straightway dangerous, And handled with a chain."

"For those whom God to ruin has designed He fits for fate, and first destroys their mind."

"There is a pleasure, sure, In being mad, which none but madmen know!"

"The alleged power to charm down insanity, or ferocity in beasts, is a power behind the eye."

"At dæmon, homini quum struit aliquid malum, Pervertit illi primitus mentem suam."

"But when Fate destines one to ruin it begins by blinding the eyes of his understanding."

"Mad as a March hare."

"Doceo insanire omnes."

"Nimirum insanus paucis videatur, eo quod Maxima pars hominum morbo jactatur eodem."

"Quisnam igitur sanus? Qui non stultus."

"O major tandem parcas, insane, minori."

"I demens! et sævas curre per Alpes, Ut pueris placeas et declamatio fias."

"O, hark! what mean those yells and cries? His chain some furious madman breaks; He comes—I see his glaring eyes; Now, now, my dungeon grate he shakes. Help! Help! He's gone!—O fearful woe, Such screams to hear, such sights to see! My brain, my brain,—I know, I know I am not mad but soon shall be."

"Id commune malum; semel insanivimus omnes."

"It’s a jungle out there Poison in the very air we breathe Do you know what’s in the water that you drink? Well I do, and it’s amazing People think I’m crazy, ’cause I worry all the time If you paid attention, you’d be worried too You better pay attention Or this world we love so much might just kill you I could be wrong now, but I don’t think so!"

"My dear Sir, take any road, you can't go amiss. The whole state is one vast insane asylum."

"Hei mihi, insanire me ajunt, ultro cum ipsi insaniunt."

"Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiæ fuit."

"Quid est dementius quam bilem in homines collectam in res effundere."

"Madam, I swear I use no art at all. That he is mad, 'tis true, 'tis true 'tis pity; And pity 'tis 'tis true."

"Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't"

"It shall be so: Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go."

"I am not mad; I would to heaven I were! For then, 'tis like I should forget myself."