Quotes about sanity

A collection of quotes on the topic of sanity, likeness, time, timing.

Quotes about sanity

“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic

Letter http://www.eapoe.org/works/letters/p4801040.htm to George W. Eveleth, Jan. 4, 1848.

“Today is filled with anger, fueled with hidden hate.
Scared of being outkast, afraid of common fate.
Today is build on tragedies which no one want's to face.
Nightmares to humanity and morally disgraced.
Tonight is filled with Rage, violence in the air.
Children bred with ruthlessness cause no one at home cares.
Tonight I lay my head down but the pressure never stops,
knowing that my sanity content when I'm droped.
But tomorrow I see change, a chance to build a new,
build on spirit intent of heart and ideas based on truth.
Tomorrow I wake with second wind and strong because of pride.
I know I fought with all my heart to keep the dream alive.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Hate, Fate, Children, Truth

“It has been said that time heals all wounds, I don't agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue, and the pain lessens, but is never gone.”

Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy (1890–1995) American philanthropist and mother of John F. Kennedy

Variant: It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.

Pain, Time

“Sanity is a small box; insanity is everything.”

Charles Manson (1934–2017) American criminal and musician

Box

“The main thing for me right now is just to live my life with my family and friends. They treat me like Leo, not 'Leonardo, Master Thespian'. That's all I need to keep my sanity.”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

http://www.popmonk.com/actors/leonardo-dicaprio/quotes-leonardo-dicaprio.htm

Life, Family

“Sanity was statistical. It was merely a question of learning to think as they thought.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

Question, Thinking, Learning

“Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Happiness, Happy, Cute

“I sometimes think we must be all mad and that we shall wake to sanity in strait-waistcoats.”

Bram Stoker book Dracula

Source: Dracula

Thinking, Madness

“Sanity is not statistical.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

“In an age of madness, to expect to be untouched by madness is a form of madness. But the pursuit of sanity can be a form of madness, too”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

Age, Madness

“And the most terrifying question of all may be just how much horror the human mind can stand and still maintain a wakeful, staring, unrelenting sanity.”

Stephen King book Pet Sematary

Source: Pet Sematary (1983)
Context: It's probably wrong to believe there can be any limit to the horror which the human mind can experience. On the contrary, it seems that some exponential effect begins to obtain as deeper and deeper darkness falls - as little as one may like to support the idea that when the nightmare grows black enough, horror spawns horror, one coincidental evil begets other, often more deliberate evils, until finally blackness seems to cover everything. And the most terrifying question of all may be just how much horror the human mind can stand and still maintain a wakeful, staring, unrelenting sanity. That such events have their own Rube Goldberg absurdity goes almost without saying. At some point, it all starts to become rather funny. That may be the point at which sanity begins either to save itself or to buckle and break down; that point at which one's sense of humor begins to reassert itself.

Question

“To disagree with three-fourths of the British public is one of the first requisites of sanity.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“That in you which recognizes madness as madness (even if it is your own) is sanity, is the arising awareness, is the end of insanity.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Madness

“Collective madness is called sanity..”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Veronika Decides to Die

Madness

“To recognize one's own insanity is, of course, the arising of sanity, the beginning of healing and transcendence.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

“for business reasons, I must preserve the outward signs of sanity.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Business

“His mind worked fast, flying in emergency supplies of common sense, as human minds do, to construct a huge anchor in sanity and prove that what happened hadn't really happened and, if it had happened, hadn't happened much.”

Terry Pratchett Thud!

Source: Thud!

Sense, Flying

“In these dancers of Saint John and Saint Vitus we can recognize the Bacchic choruses of the Greeks, with their prehistory in Asia Minor, as far back as Babylon and the orgiastic Sacaea. Some people, either through a lack of experience or through obtuseness, turn away with pity or contempt from phenomena such as these as from 'folk diseases', bolstered by a sense of their own sanity; these poor creatures have no idea how blighted and ghostly this 'sanity' of theirs sounds when the glowing life of Dionysiac revellers thunders past them.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book The Birth of Tragedy

In diesen Sanct-Johann- und Sanct-Veittänzern erkennen wir die bacchischen Chöre der Griechen wieder, mit ihrer Vorgeschichte in Kleinasien, bis hin zu Babylon und den orgiastischen Sakäen. Es giebt Menschen, die, aus Mangel an Erfahrung oder aus Stumpfsinn, sich von solchen Erscheinungen wie von "Volkskrankheiten", spöttisch oder bedauernd im Gefühl der eigenen Gesundheit abwenden: die Armen ahnen freilich nicht, wie leichenfarbig und gespenstisch eben diese ihre "Gesundheit" sich ausnimmt, wenn an ihnen das glühende Leben dionysischer Schwärmer vorüberbraust.
Source: The Birth of Tragedy (1872), p. 17

Life, People, Disease, Idea

“I abhor unjust war. I abhor injustice and bullying by the strong at the expense of the weak, whether among nations or individuals. I abhor violence and bloodshed. I believe that war should never be resorted to when, or so long as, it is honorably possible to avoid it. I respect all men and women who from high motives and with sanity and self-respect do all they can to avert war. I advocate preparation for war in order to avert war; and I should never advocate war unless it were the only alternative to dishonor.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Source: 1910s, Theodore Roosevelt — An Autobiography (1913), Ch. VII : The War of American and the Unready

Women, Men, War, Motivation

“Progress towards sanity is achieved by abandoning first the desire for omnipotence and then that for exceptional achievement.”

Celia Green (1935) British philosopher

Advice to Clever Children (1981)

“Well, I kind of split my life into two pieces. One was where my chess career lies. There, I kept my sanity, so to speak, and my logic. And the other was my religious life. I tried to apply what I learned in the church to my chess career too. But I still was studying chess. I wasn't just "trusting in God" to give me the moves.”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

1970s, BOBBY FISCHER SPEAKS OUT! (1977)

Life, God, Study, Learning

“For it needs little skill in psychology to be sure that a highly gifted girl who had tried to use her gift for poetry would have been so thwarted and hindered by other people, so tortured and pulled asunder by her own contrary instincts, that she must have lost her health and sanity to a certainty.”

Virginia Woolf book A Room of One's Own

Source: A Room of One's Own (1929), Ch. 3, p. 51

People, Health, Girl

“To shake off the maddening and wearying limitations of time and space and natural law—to be linked with the vast outside—to come close to the nighted and abysmal secrets of the infinite and the ultimate—surely such a thing was worth the risk of one’s life, soul, and sanity!”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Fiction, The Whisperer in Darkness (1931)

Life, Secret, Law, Soul

“Asking a tyrant for justice is just like asking a crazy being for sanity, a crazy person considers himself the only sane being among all people”

Ali Al-Wardi (1913–1995) Iraqi sociologist

People, Justice, Personality

“People who develop the habit of thinking of themselves as world citizens are fulfilling the first requirement of sanity in our time.”

Norman Cousins (1915–1990) American journalist

Editorial (1971).
Saturday Review
Context: The present mode of life on earth is madness, which is nontheless lethal for being legal. Rational existence is possible, but it calls for a world consciousness and a world design. People who develop the habit of thinking of themselves as world citizens are fulfilling the first requirement of sanity in our time.

People, World, Thinking, Time

“For to disagree with three-fourths of the British public on all points is one of the first elements of sanity, one of the deepest consolations in all moments of spiritual doubt.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

The English Renaissance of Art https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/wilde/oscar/english-renaissance-of-art/ (1882)

“You know why my spirit's callin'
Darkness can't take light from me
Haven't you gone far enough?
Sacrificed the ones you love
Gave up on your sanity
Like some twisted fantasy
What would I say to everything?
Your actions cost everything.”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

Never Abandon Your Family
Lyrics, Donda (2021)

Love, Light

“Sanity? Sorry, I don't ever remember having something like that before.”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

Variant: Sanity? Sorry, but I don't remember having such a useless thing in the first place.

“Worse than madness. Sanity.”

William Golding book Pincher Martin

Source: Pincher Martin

Madness

“You aren't thinking or really existing unless you're willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgement of your existence.”

Frank Herbert book Children of Dune

Source: Children of Dune

Thinking

“Maybe the life I think I'm living is a paranoid delusion… Sanity is a valuable possession; I hoard it the way people once hoarded money. I save it, so I will have enough, when the time comes.”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid's Tale

Life, Money, People, Way

“She was as one who, in madness, was resolute to throw herself from a precipice, but to whom some remnant of sanity remained which forced her to seek those who would save her from herself.”

Anthony Trollope book Can You Forgive Her?

Source: Can You Forgive Her?

Madness

“Give me solitude — give me Nature — give me again, O Nature, your primal sanities!”

Walt Whitman book Fulles d'herba

Leaves of Grass

Nature, Solitude

“Sanity - a trick of agreement”

Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) American poet

“To live and let live, without clamor for distinction or recognition; to wait on divine love; to write truth first on the tablet of one's own heart - this is the sanity and perfection of living, and my human ideal.”

Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910) religious leader

Love, Truth, Waiting, Heart

“Sanity is a madness put to good uses.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

Source: The Essential Santayana: Selected Writings

Madness

“You don't think I'm crazy?" I asked hesitantly.
"Like I'm one to judge another persons sanity.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: Alice in Zombieland

Thinking, Personality

“Where's your sense of adventure?"
"Off on a beach somewhere with your sanity?”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Midnight Alley

Sense

“I believe I want adult sanity, which seems to me the only unalloyed form of heroism available today.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

“I salute your spunk, but I question your sanity,” Sam said.”

Libba Bray book The Diviners

The Diviners
Variant: i salute your spunk, but question your sanity.

Question

“The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you.”

Rita Mae Brown (1944) Novelist, poet, screenwriter, activist

Many sources attribute this quote to Brown without giving a specific reference to her writings. The earliest located is the following variation from p. 47 of Musgrave Landing: Musings on the Writing Life by Susan Musgrave (1994), which Musgrave quotes as "Rita Mae Brown's warning": "If you become the kind of writer who calls forth heated emotional states, be careful. There are a lot of unbalanced people out there. The statistics on insanity are that one out of every four people is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's got to be you."
Disputed

Thinking, Suffering

“the only people who have proof of their sanity are those who have been discharged from mental institutions”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: Take Today: The Executive as Dropout

People

“Sanity is a matter of consensus.”

Robert Sheckley Options

Source: Options

“All sanity depends on this: that it should be a delight to feel heat strike the skin, a delight to stand upright, knowing the bones moving easily under the flesh.”

Doris Lessing book The Golden Notebook

Anna Wulf, in "The Golden Notebook"
The Golden Notebook (1962)
Context: I knew, and it was an illumination — one of those things one has always known, but never understood before — that all sanity depends on this: that it should be a delight to feel the roughness of a carpet under smooth soles, a delight to feel heat strike the skin, a delight to stand upright, knowing the bones are moving easily under flesh.
Context: I knew, and it was an illumination — one of those things one has always known, but never understood before — that all sanity depends on this: that it should be a delight to feel the roughness of a carpet under smooth soles, a delight to feel heat strike the skin, a delight to stand upright, knowing the bones are moving easily under flesh. If this goes, then the conviction of life goes too. But I could feel none of this. … I knew I was moving into a new dimension, further from sanity than I had ever been. <!-- p. 585

Feeling, Dependency

“A good friend is a connection to life - a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world.”

Lois Wyse (1926–2007) American advertising executive

Life, World, Past, Future

“The point is, you see," said Ford, "that there is no point in driving yourself mad trying to stop yourself going mad. You might just as well give in and save your sanity for later.”

Douglas Adams Life, the Universe and Everything

Source: Life, the Universe and Everything

Madness

“Never question the sanity of a woman who can render you defenseless with a look.”

Julie Anne Peters (1952) American writer

Source: By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead

Question

“But I like my madness. There is a thrill in it unknown to such sanity as yours.”

Rafael Sabatini book Scaramouche

Book 1, Chapter 9
Source: Scaramouche

Madness

“The nice thing about having a friend who is crazier than you are is that she bolsters your belief in your own sanity.”

Julie Powell (1973) American blogger

Source: Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen: How One Girl Risked Her Marriage, Her Job, and Her Sanity to Master the Art of Living

“It's really scary when you have a moment of temporary sanity.”

Nelson DeMille book The Lion

Source: The Lion

“At first, being with Sebastian was like being in the middle of the best dream I'd ever had - but now it mostly feels exhausting. I'm up one minute and down the next; questioning what I say and do. Even questioning my sanity.”

Candace Bushnell book The Carrie Diaries

Source: The Carrie Diaries

Dreams, Feeling, Question

“Art has always been the raft onto which we climb to save our sanity. I don't see a different purpose for it now.”

Dorothea Tanning (1910–2012) American artist

Art

“and he would probably not agree with my conviction that a sense of humor is the main measure of sanity. But who can say for sure? Humor is a very private thing.”

Hunter S. Thompson Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72

Source: Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72

Sense

“This was the door to both sustenance and sanity. And we were each other's key.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

“Irony - The modern mode: either the devil’s mark or the snorkel of sanity.”

Julian Barnes book Flaubert's Parrot

Source: Flaubert's Parrot

“Delight in itself is the approach of sanity. Delight is to open our eyes to the reality of the situation rather than siding with this or that point of view.”

Chögyam Trungpa (1939–1987) Tibetan Buddhist lama and writer

Source: The Myth of Freedom and the Way of Meditation

Reality

“That she had so completely recovered her sanity was a source of sadness to her. One should never be cured of one's passion.”

Marguerite Duras book The Ravishing of Lol Stein

Source: The Ravishing of Lol Stein

Sadness, Passion

“Survival lies in sanity, and sanity lies in paying attention… the capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.”

Julia Cameron book The Artist's Way

Source: The Artist's Way

“Wolves? I should have known. Of course you have wolves. Doesn’t everybody?” She snapped her fingers. “The gun, Lucian. Hand it over. I’ve decided I have to shoot you after all. It’s the only way to preserve my sanity.”

Christine Feehan book Dark Guardian

Source: Dark Guardian

Way

“The cost of sanity in this society, is a certain level of alienation”

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist

“The measure of mindfulness, the touchstone for sanity in this society, is our level of productivity, our attention to responsibility, our ability to plain and simple hold down a job.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel book Prozac Nation

Source: Prozac Nation

“A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point of doubtful sanity.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

“One should make the best choice possible given the circumstances, and then avoid second-guessing for the sake of one's own sanity.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Again the Magic

“I felt lethal, on the verge of frenzy. My nightly bloodlust overflowed into my days and I had to leave the city. My mask of sanity was a victim of impending slippage. This was the bone season for me and I needed a vacation.”

Bret Easton Ellis book American Psycho

Source: American Psycho

Season

“The distinction between sanity and insanity is narrower than the razor's edge, sharper than a hound's tooth, more agile than a mule deer. It is more elusive than the merest phantom. Perhaps it does not even exist; perhaps it is a phantom.”

Philip K. Dick book VALIS

Source: VALIS (1981)

“In an insane world, sanity made very little sense.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Bitter Blood

World, Sense

“It isn't for the moment you are struck that you need courage, but for that long uphill climb back to sanity and faith and security.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906–2001) American aviator and author

Faith, Courage

“I taught him, 'he quavered, "to trust in love. I said:'when love comes, that is reality.' I said: 'Passion does not blind. No. Passion is sanity, and the woman you love, she is the only person you will ever really understand.”

E.M. Forster book A Room with a View

Source: A Room with a View

Love, Understanding, Reality, Passion

“they worry about my sanity i join with them on that”

Cecelia Ahern book Thanks for the Memories

Source: Thanks for the Memories

“There are things we want, and things we may have…. Sanity lies in knowing the difference.”

Karen Chance American writer

Source: Death's Mistress

“Sanity is a cozy lie.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Lie

“The concept of dreaming is known to the waking mind but to the dreamer there is no waking, no real world, no sanity; there is only the screaming bedlam of sleep.”

Stephen King book Rose Madder

Source: Rose Madder

World, Dreams, Sleep

“Sanity is a valuable possession; I hoard it the way people once hoarded money. I save it, so I will have enough, when the time comes.”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), Chapter 19 (p. 109)
Source: The Handmaid's Tale

Money, People, Way, Time

“Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity.”

Herman Melville book Billy Budd, Sailor

Source: Billy Budd, the Sailor (1891), Ch. 21
Source: Billy Budd, Sailor
Context: Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity. In pronounced cases there is no question about them. But in some supposed cases, in various degrees supposedly less pronounced, to draw the exact line of demarcation few will undertake tho' for a fee some professional experts will. There is nothing nameable but that some men will undertake to do it for pay.

Color, Drawing