FastSaying

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 asylum?"

(Editorial, The Times, 22 July 1853)

Kate Summerscale

insanitylunacymadnesspassionpsychologysanity

Related Quotes

Flirting with madness was one thing; when madness started flirting back, it was time to call the whole thing off.
— Rohinton Mistry
insanitymadnesssanity
In a mad world, only the mad are sane.
— Akira Kurosawa
insanitymadnesssanity
Once upon a time there was a

Once upon a time there was a

Once upon a time there was a

Stop this. It's undignified.
— N.K. Jemisin
insanitymadnesssanity
The cab driver is staring at me in his mirror. I'm talking to myself.
"The second sign of madness," I explain.
"What's the first one?"
"Killing lots of people and eating their genitals."
He laughs and sneaks another look at me.
— Michael Robotham
humorinsanitymadness
One secret of life is that the reason life works at all is that not everyone in your tribe is nuts on the same day. Another secret is that laughter is carbonated holiness
— Anne Lamott
insaneinsanitymadness