Quotes on Wahnsinn

It begins with skepticism. The history of human folly, and our own susceptibility to illusions and fallacies, tell us that men and women are fallible.

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

It is naively assumed that the fact that the majority of people share certain ideas or feelings proves the validity of these ideas and feelings. Nothing is further from the truth. Consensual validation as such has no bearing whatsoever on reason or mental health. Just as there is a folie à deux there is a folie à millions. The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same mental pathology does not make these people sane.

A man who is 'of sound mind' is one who keeps the inner madman under lock and key.

We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.

Schizophrenia --its nature, etiology, and the kind of therapy to use for it--remains one of the most puzzling of the mental illnesses. The theory of schizophrenia presented here is based on communications analysis, and specifically on the Theory of Logical Types. From this theory and from observations of schizophrenic patients is derived a description, and the necessary conditions for, a situation called the "double bind"--a situation in which no matter what a person does, he "can't win." It is hypothesized that a person caught in the double bind may develop schizophrenic symptoms

I think that we're all mentally ill. Those of us outside the asylums only hide it a little better - and maybe not all that much better after all.

The pathology is to want control, not that you ever get it, because of course you never do.

In a mad world, only the mad are sane.

The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success.

In individuals madness is a rarity, but in groups, parties, peoples it is the rule.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

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