Quotes about abnormality (107 quotes, page 2)

“The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: a human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

As quoted in The 101 Habits of Highly Successful Screenwriters: Insiders Secrets from Hollywood's Top Writers (2001) by Karl Inglesias, p. 4. This has also appeared on the internet in several slightly paraphrased forms.
Context: The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: a human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him, a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create — so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.

“I am confident that the things that have been described for centuries as mystical insight are results of abnormal Multiverse sensitivity — either acquired accidentally or developed through training.”

James P. Hogan (1941–2010) British writer

Source: Paths to Otherwhere (1996), Ch. 8
Context: I am confident that the things that have been described for centuries as mystical insight are results of abnormal Multiverse sensitivity — either acquired accidentally or developed through training. There is that much in common. The difference is in the direction that consciousness looks in — the part of the Multiverse from which information enters awareness. In the traditional meditative state, the mind expands into the present. Its experience is of knowing — direct perception of a timeless reality that transcends the limited world of the senses. The QUADAR, by contrast, tunes to the future. It delivers an experience of feelings and premonitions. One reveals what is; the other, what could be. Actuality versus potential.

Confidence , Training

“For the past ten years conditions have been abnormal. The feverish preparation for war and the more feverish maintenance of the war effort engulfed all aspects of national economies.”

George Marshall (1880–1959) US military leader, Army Chief of Staff

The Marshall Plan Speech (1947)
Context: For the past ten years conditions have been abnormal. The feverish preparation for war and the more feverish maintenance of the war effort engulfed all aspects of national economies. Machinery has fallen into disrepair or is entirely obsolete. Under the arbitrary and destructive Nazi rule, virtually every possible enterprise was geared into the German war machine. Long-standing commercial ties, private institutions, banks, insurance companies, and shipping companies disappeared through loss of capital, absorption through nationalization, or by simple destruction. In many countries, confidence in the local currency has been severely shaken. The breakdown of the business structure of Europe during the war was complete.

War , Effort , Past

“When we consider that labor is the producer of all wealth, is it not evident that the impoverishment and, dependence of labor are abnormal conditions resulting from restrictions and usurpations, and that instead of accepting protection, what labor should demand is freedom.”

Henry George (1839–1897) American economist

Source: Protection or Free Trade? (1886), Ch. 2
Context: When we consider that labor is the producer of all wealth, is it not evident that the impoverishment and, dependence of labor are abnormal conditions resulting from restrictions and usurpations, and that instead of accepting protection, what labor should demand is freedom. That those who advocate any extension of freedom choose to go no further than suits their own special purpose is no reason why freedom itself should be distrusted.

Freedom , Dependency , Wealth

“The end of Kali Yuga is significant, for many cosmic events are connected with this period... Armageddon was predicted ages ago, and the abnormalities at the end of Kali Yuga were described in the Puranas, but even keen thinkers underestimated those clear indications. However, the unusualness of the events does not impress humanity, whose mental confusion was also predicted ages ago.”

Helena Roerich (1879–1955) Russian philosopher

106
Armageddon

Age

“When men tell us that the great religious teachers are neuropaths, that Buddha, Christ, S. Francis, are neuropaths, then we are inclined to cast our lot with the abnormal few, rather than with the normal many. We know what they were. They were men who saw far more and knew far more than we; what matters it whether we call their brains normal or abnormal? In these men's consciousness is a ray of the Divine splendour; as Browning says: Through such souls alone God, stooping, shows sufficient of Hill Light For us in the dark to rise by. And if in those cases the brain change from a normal to an abnormal state, then humanity must ever remain thankful to abnormality. That was the first answer which may be made to this statement of Lombroso, and you find a man like Dr. Maudsley, the famous doctor, asking whether there is any law that nature shall use only for her purposes what we call the perfect brains? May it not be that for her higher performances she needs brains which are different from the ordinary, the normal brains of man?”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Source: Essays and Addresses, Vol. III- Evolution and Occultism (1913)

Soul , God , Law , Light

“For the truly creative mind in any field is no more than this — a human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create — to create — to create — so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of beauty and meaning his very breath is cut off from him. He must create. He must pour out creation. By some strange unknown pressing inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

"The Creative Mind at Work," William Vaughn Moody Foundation Lecture at the University of Chicago (1935), as quoted in Pearl S. Buck: A Biography, Volume 2 - Her Philosophy as Expressed in Her Letters (1971) by Theodore F. Harris, p. 217.

God , Beauty , Music , Joy

Quotes about abnormality page 2

Quotes about abnormality
page 2