Quotes on Sanity, Insanity, Reality, and Imagination
Mad, adj.: Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence. -Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)
"Reality can be beaten with enough imagination." -Anon.
"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality." -Jules de Gautier
"Reality is wrong. Dreams are for real." -Tupac Shakur
"Insanity -- a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world."
"We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe." -Goethe
"Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy." -Nora Ephron
"There's a very fine line between a groove and a rut; a fine line between eccentrics and people who are just plain nuts." -Anon.
"I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!"
What we imagine is order is merely the prevailing form of chaos. ~Kerry Thornley, Principia Discordia, 5th edition
Good day to ask deep questions. Why is it called an afterlife, when really it's an afterdeath? And why do people always talk about "going into the light", who have had near-death experiences? Isn't that rather moth-like behavior for an ex-mammal? What if that's really some sort of spiritual bug-zapper? --Fred Barling
Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy. ~Anon.
"All statements are true in some sense, false in some sense, meaningless in some sense, true and false in some sense, true and meaningless in some sense, false and meaningless in some sense, and true and false and meaningless in some sense. "
The truth is out there. We'll let it back in when it sobers up.
Attention: Until further notice 2 + 2 = 5 - Please adjust your reality accordingly. ~Anon.
DO NOT ADJUST YOUR MIND - the fault is with reality. ~Anon.
I refuse to be intimidated by reality anymore!
It's not denial; I'm just very selective about the reality I choose. ~Anon.
My grasp on reality is like Jello - firm until under pressure. ~Anon.
My greatest enemy is reality. I have fought it successfully for thirty years. -Margaret Anderson
Reality continues to ruin my life. --Calvin and Hobbes
Reality is an illusion caused by drug deficiency. ~Anon.
Reality is when it happens to you. ~Anon.
Reality? Yeah, I've played that game. The plot *sucks*, but the graphics areawesome! ~Anon.
Reality's the only obstacle to happiness. ~Anon.
The trick is to get a strong grip on reality - AND THEN CHOKE IT TO DEATH. ~Anon.
Imagination gallops; judgment merely walks.
You're a figment of my imagination -- which just goes to show what a sick and twisted mind *I've* got.
"Control your life through insanity." ~Cliff Burton of Metallica
This planet is obviously being used as an insane asylum by other planets. -George Bernard Shaw
out of all the things I've lost I miss my mind the most -ozzy osbourne
*"Nothing defines human better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lotteries, dating and religion." -Scott Adams 'The Dilbert Principle'
"I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it! -Garrison Keillor
"I had been crossing and recrossing the line between sanity and madness so many times that I had all but rubbed it out." -Corwin, Prince of Amber, in "The Guns of Avalon", by Roger Zelazny
I don't really trust a sane person. ~Lyle Alzado
Realism...has no more to do with reality than anything else. Hob Broun
Reality is something you rise above. Liza Minnelli
Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it. -Jane Wagner, (and Lily Tomlin)
'Schizophrenic?' No, *WE* prefer the word 'Imaginative...'
A lot of times people ask what the difference is between an insane person and an eccentric........it's really simple..... an eccentric is somebody that knows the difference between crazy and insane, and chooses crazy just because it's more fun. --Chris Kane
All my friends and I are crazy. That's the only thing that keeps us sane.
And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you mad. --Aldous Huxley
Apparently I'm insane. But I'm one of the happy kinds!
Do I have to come over there and whap you with the rubber chicken of dementia?--Julie
Do the voices in my head bother you?
Don't assume I'm sane. Don't assume I'm not.
Gone crazy, be back later, leave message at the beep.
Hi! I'm heavily armed, easily bored & off the medication.
I don't see what's so damned wrong with having a whole lot of voices in my head. They're all smart, funny, and have good ideas. --David Borenstein
I'm going crazy. Want to come along?
I haven't lost my mind, it's backed up on tape somewhere.
I know! I'll transcribe the conversations between the voices in my head and send them to you!!! --David Borenstein
I like the way your mind malfunctions.
I'm no lunatic, man! I'm a sane man fighting for his soul! --R.H. Renfield, "Dracula"
I'm not crazy; I'm just a sane person trapped in the body of a lunatic.
I'm not crazy, I've just been in a very bad mood for 40 years. --"Steel Magnolias"
I'm not insane, I'm going sane in an insane world! --Jill Morrisson
In a mad world only the mad are sane. --Akira Kurosawa
Out of my mind. Back in five minutes.
Perhaps God is not dead; perhaps God himself is mad. --R.D. Lang
Real fun is bungie jumping off the edge of insanity!
Sanity has gone out the window..and is running down the street ... --Lady Jade (from alt.fan.dragons)
Sanity is a cozy lie. --Susan Sontag
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island in the midst of black seas of infinity and it was not meant that we should voyage far. Some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality that we shall either go mad from the relevation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age. Theosophists have guessed at the awesome grandeur of the cosmic cycle wherein our world and human race form transient incidents." ~H.P Lovecraft, "Call of Cthulhu"
"Hope is the denial of reality. It is the carrot dangled before the draft horse to keep him plodding along in a vain attempt to reach it." ~Weis and Hickman
When I was alive, I believed - as you do - that time was at least as real and solid as myself, and probably more so. I said "one o'clock" as though I could see it, and "Monday" as if I could find it on the map. Like everyone else I lived in a house bricked up with seconds and minutes and New Year's Days, and I never went outside because there was no other door. Now I know that I could have walked through the walls. ~The Skull, The Last Unicorn
what if i were everyone in the world. every murder would also be a suicide. i'd be the person that shot myself, and the person that sued me for shooting me. id be the jury that sentenced myself to death. id be the judge that delivered the sentence. i'd be the preacher that gave me my last words and the chef that cooked me my last meal. i'd be the guard that escorted me to the little room. i would be the one to inject myself with lethal poisons. i would watch myself die, never feeling my own pain. i would be the preacher that preached at my funeral and the guests that attended it. i would be the pallbearers that carried my own coffin. i would be the person that dug my own grave and the one that set my coffin into the ground. and i would be the little girl that set flowers on the grave. setting flowers on my own grave ~Stardust187
"Flying is simple. You just throw yourself at the ground and miss." ~Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for the Fish
Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me. To see reality -- not as we expect it to be but as it is -- is to see that unless we live for each other and in and through each other, we do not really live very satisfactorily; that there can really be life only where there really is, in just this sense, love. ~Carl Frederick Buechner
"I shut my eyes in order to see." ~ Josh Davis
I want to believe. ~Fox Mulder's poster
We all go a little mad sometimes. ~Anthony Perkins, Psycho
What we do in life, echoes in eternity. ~Maximus, Gladiator
"I used to have a handle on life, but it fell off." -author unknown
There is absolutely no indication that the universe is doing this on purpose. Remember this. It may be of some consolation in the long run. -???
"All we see is but a dream within a dream." - Edgar Allan Poe
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. ~Albert Einstein
The madman who knows that he is mad is close to sanity. ~Ruiz de Alarcon
"From Countless Ages We Have Dreamed, From Endless Worlds We Have Beckoned, From Infinite Choices We Have Suffered. The World Chokes Under Stifling Conformity, Hopes Crumble in the Fire of Mediocrity, Heroes Die in the Snare of Pride. Armageddon is at Hand. Reality is a Lie. The Truth is Magic. Open Your Eyes and Awaken." ~Mage: The Ascension
"Life is a dream from which we all must wake before we can dream again." ~Robert Jordan
"Ordinarily he was insane, but he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid." ~Heinrich Heine
"Those who are led off to execution- no doubt their thoughts fasten on anything, just like mine." ~Fydor Dostoyevskey, Crime and Punishment