“Madness frequently discovers itself merely by unnecessary deviation from the usual modes of the world. My poor friend Smart showed the disturbance of his mind, by falling upon his knees, and saying his prayers in the street, or in any other unusual place. Now although, rationally speaking, it is greater madness not to pray at all, than to pray as Smart did, I am afraid there are so many who do not pray, that their understanding is not called in question.”
Samuel Johnson, quoted in James Boswell, Life of Dr. Johnson http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/smart.html
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Christopher Smart 4
English poet 1722–1771Related quotes

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as quoted in Early Islamic Mysticism (New York: Paulist Press: 1996), p. 165

"On a Portrait of a Deaf Man" line 25, from Old Lights for New Chancels.
Poetry