Party-spirit at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.

No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.

No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.

Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.

Most men are within a finger’s breadth of being mad.

Everywhere in life, the true question is not what we gain, but what we do.

Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because nothing can be gained from him.

There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.

What can everyone do? Praise and blame. This is human virtue, this is human madness.

Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence.

I find myself hoping a total end of all the unhappy divisions of mankind by party-spirit, which at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.

Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman, but believing what he read made him mad.

Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.

It is a clear gain to sacrifice pleasure in order to avoid pain.

The great proof of madness is the disproportion of one’s designs to one’s means.

O! Let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven; keep me in temper; I would not be mad!

There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad.

There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it.

The worst of madmen is a saint run mad.

Madness is rare in individuals – but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule.

Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.

But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.

Most poets are young simply because they have not been caught up. Show me an old poet, and I’ll show you, more often than not, either a madman or a master… it’s when you begin to lie to yourself in a poem in order simply to make a poem that you fail. That is why I do not rework poems.

To appreciate the noble is a gain which can never be torn from us.

I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.

There is no great genius without some touch of madness.

With the introduction of agriculture mankind entered upon a long period of meanness, misery, and madness, from which they are only now being freed by the beneficent operation of the machine.

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.