“A madman's ravings are absurd in relation to the situation in which he finds himself, but not in relation to his madness.”

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Jean Paul Sartre321

French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, sc… 1905–1980

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“An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 562 (2 July 1714).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

“The relation of the inhabitants of the universe to each other most favorable to the satisfaction of the desires of the universe is, therefore, that which will enable the animate universe, as a whole, to attain that relation which an individual living being, if he were alone In the universe, would desire to achieve for himself—a relation such as is sustained to each other and to the whole by the individual cells of a multicellular organism—a relation in which each acts in the interests of all, including himself, and all act in the interests of each.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), The Social Ideal, pp. 146–147

“Driven raving mad by love—and he a man who had been always esteemed for his great prudence.”

Ludovico Ariosto book Orlando Furioso

Che per amor venne in furore e matto,
d'huom che si saggio era stimato prima.
Canto I, stanza 2 (tr. Guido Waldman); of Orlando.
Orlando Furioso (1532)

“It is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act.”

Stanley Milgram (1933–1984) Social psychologist

Source: Obedience to Authority : An Experimental View (1974), p. 205
Context: The social psychology of this century reveals a major lesson: often it is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act.

“Learn from me that a wise man who has heard a criminal accusation related with so many absurd particulars ceases to be wise when he makes himself the echo of what he has heard, for if the accusation should turn out to be a calumny, he would himself become the accomplice of the slanderer.”

Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice

Memoirs of J. Casanova de Seingalt (1894)

“Each sex has a relation to madness. Every desire has a relation to madness. But it would seem that one desire has been taken as wisdom, moderation, truth, leaving to the other sex the weight of a madness that cannot be acknowledged or accommodated.”

Luce Irigaray (1930) feminist, philosopher, linguist, psychoanalyst, sociologist and cultural theorist

“He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the contraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relation which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection.”

Michel Foucault book Discipline and Punish

Part Three, Panopticism
Discipline and Punish (1977)

“He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection.”

Michel Foucault book Discipline and Punish

Discipline and Punish (1977)

“The rights a man arrogates to himself are related to the duties he imposes on himself, to the tasks to which he feels equal. The great majority of men have no right to existence, but are a misfortune to higher men.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book The Will to Power

Sec. 872 (Notebook W I 1. Spring 1884, KGW VII, 2.97-8, KSA 11.101-2)
The Will to Power (1888)

“She's stark raving mad!”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

“A madman's ravings are absurd in relation to the situation in which he finds himself, but not in relation to his madness.”

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Jean Paul Sartre321

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