What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?

Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one. At one time it had been a sign of madness to believe that the Earth goes round the Sun; today, to believe the past is inalterable. He might be alone in holding that belief, and if alone, then a lunatic. But the thought of being a lunatic did not greatly trouble him; the horror was that he might also be wrong.

Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.

I thought about how I had now let a self-proclaimed lunatic into my house twice and considered the possibility that my life needed sorting out.

But the thought of being a lunatic did not greatly trouble him; the horror was that he might also be wrong.

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.