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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

The worst of madmen is a saint run mad.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

There is no great genius without some touch of madness.

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

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

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

There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.