Lunatic Asylums Quotes

Doubtless the lunatic asylums of the world are filled with unfortunate women who have failed to see my charms. ~ Cassandra Clare

A man is called a good fellow for doing things which, if done by a woman, would land her in a lunatic asylum. ~ H.L. Mencken

I remember to this day how easily I could grasp what he called his tentative ideas when he talked about the architectural style of the capitalist era, a subject which he said had fascinated him since his own student days, speaking in particular of the compulsive sense of order and the tendency towards monumentalism evident in law courts and penal institutions, railway stations and stock exchanges, opera houses and lunatic asylums, and the dwelling built to rectangular grid patterns for the labor force. ~ W.G. Sebald

There is no such thing as a pure extrovert or a pure introvert. Such a man would be in the lunatic asylum. ~ Carl Jung

When a man says that he is perfect already, there is only one of two places for him, and that is heaven or the lunatic asylum. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

America is a lunatic asylum. ~ Ezra Pound

On the other hand, I must mention that, by a diligent search in lunatic asylums, I have found individual cases of patients who where unquestionably endowed with great talents, and whose genius distinctly appeared through their madness, which, however, had completely gained the upper hand. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

can tell you. I know of men who believe in themselves more colossally than Napoleon or Caesar. I know where flames the fixed star of certainty and success. I can guide you to the thrones of the Super-men. The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums." He said mildly that there ~ G.K. Chesterton

The most dangerous thing of all, and something he wanted to warn me about above all else, the one thing that had consigned whole regiments of unfortunate young people to the twilight world of insanity, was reading books. This objectionable practice had increased among the younger generation, and Dad was more pleased than the could say to not that I had not yet displayed any such tendencies. Lunatic asylums were overflowing with folk who'd been reading too much. Once upon a time they'd been just like you and me, physically strong, straightforward, cheerful, and well balanced. Then they'd started reading. Most often by chance. A bout of flu perhaps, with a few days in bed. An attractive book cover that had aroused some curiosity. And suddenly the bad habit had taken hold. The first book had led to another. Then another, and another, all links in a chain that led straight down into the eternal night of mental illness. It was impossible to stop. It was worse than drugs.

It might just be possible, if you were very careful, to look at the occasional book that could teach you something, such as encyclopedias or repair manuals. The most dangerous kind of book was fiction-- that's where all the brooding was sparked and encouraged. Damnit all! Addictive and risky products like that should only be available in state-regulated monopoly stores, rationed and sold only to those with a license, and mature in age. ~ Mikael Niemi

By a 'silly' theory I mean one which may be held at the time when one is talking or writing professionally, but which only an inmate of a lunatic asylum would think of carrying into daily life ... It must not be supposed that the men who maintain these theories and beliefs are 'silly' people. Only very acute and learned men could have thought of anything so odd or defended anything so preposterous against the continual protests of common sense. ~ C. D. Broad

When Švejk subsequently described life in the lunatic asylum, he did so in exceptionally eulogistic terms: 'I really don't know why those loonies get so angry when they're kept there. You can crawl naked on the floor, howl like a jackal, rage and bite. If anyone did this anywhere on the promenade people would be astonished, but there it's the most common or garden thing to do. There's a freedom there which not even Socialists have ever dreamed of. ~ Jaroslav Hasek

When I cease to preach salvation by faith in Jesus put me into a lunatic asylum, for you may be sure that my mind is gone. ~ Charles Spurgeon

It seems as though I were in a lunatic asylum, but I am never sure who is the attendant and who the inmate. ~ James Bryant Conant

I am certain that a Sewing Machine would relieve as much human suffering as a hundred Lunatic Asylums, and possibly a good deal more. ~ Margaret Atwood

Most of Arbus's work lies within the Warhol aesthetic, that is, defines itself in relation to the twin poles of boringness and freakishness; but it doesn't have the Warhol style. Arbus had neither Warhol's narcissism and genius for publicity nor the self-protective blandness with which he insulates himself from the freaky nor his sentimentality. It is unlikey that Warhol, who comes from a working-class family, ever felt any ambivalence toward success which afflicted the children of the Jewish upper middle classes in the 1960s. To someone raised as a Catholic, like Warhol (and virtually everyone in his gang), a fascination with evil comes much more genuinely than it does to someone from a Jewish background. Compared with Warhol, Arbus seems strikingly vulnerable, innocent--and certainly more pessimistic. Her Dantesque vision of the city (and the suburbs) has no reserves of irony. Although much of Arbus's material is the same as that depicted in, say, Warhol's Chelsea Girls (1966)...For Arbus, both freaks and Middle America were equally exotic: a boy marching in a pro-war parade and a Levittown housewife were as alien as a dwarf or a transvestite; lower-middle-class suburbia was as remote as Times Square, lunatic asylums, and gay bars. Arbus's work expressed her turn against what was public (as she experienced it), conventional, safe, reassuring--and boring--in favor of what was private, hidden, ugly, dangerous, and fascinating. These contrasts, now, seem almost quaint. What is ~ Susan Sontag

If I were to say what I really think I would be arrested or shut away in a lunatic asylum. Come on, I am sure that it would be the same for everyone. ~ Roberto Bolano

Each of us is armed with this touchstone of actuality; by applying it we decide that this sorry world of ours is actual and Utopia is a dream. As our individual consciousnesses are different, so our touchstones are different; but fortunately they all agree in their indication of actuality - or at any rate those which agree are in sufficient majority to shut the others up in lunatic asylums. ~ Arthur Stanley Eddington

The longer I live the more convinced I become that one of the greatest honors we can confer on other people is to see them as they are, to recognize not only that they exist, but that they exist in specific ways and have specific realities. ~ V.S. Naipaul

But a predominantly scientific and technological education, such as is the usual thing nowadays, can also bring about a spiritual regression and a considerable increase of psychic dissociation. With hygiene and prosperity alone a man is still far from health, otherwise the most enlightened and most comfortably off among us would be the healthiest. But in regard to neuroses that is not the case at all, quite the contrary. Loss of roots and lack of tradition neuroticize the masses and prepare them for collective hysteria. Collective hysteria calls for collective therapy, which consists in abolition of liberty and terrorization. Where rationalistic materialism holds sway, states tend to develop less into prisons than into lunatic asylums. ~ C.G. Jung

The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Idiot! Lunatic! Moron! Jackass! Selfish irresponsible fool! ~ Stephenie Meyer

Oftentimes, what seems to be a street lunatic charging at me spouting gibberish turns out to be a devoted 'Simpsons' fan quoting their favorite line. ~ Matt Groening

It's reasonable to try for success. Paradoxically, it's also sane to admit defeat. This excels the coming of the end. And when that tide has crested and broken, it recedes from the shore to leave behind something of principle significance. An artefact borne from the lunatic fight. The human struggle. And I can see myself, not too far into the future, with my hair whipping about in the fray of coastal spray, arching low to pick up that wriggling, billion-limbed nautilus, to hold it to my winter-cold ear, to hear what I could hear. ~ Kirk Marshall

Alden seems like a very nice boy. The kind of boy I'd like to see you hanging out with." I almost laughed out loud. If she only knew! A reincarnated, soul-sharing lunatic. Ghost Boy---every mother's dream. ~ Mary Lindsey

When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? ~ Miguel De Cervantes

I don't want to pay good money to hear ordinary people's lunatic views. Most of the people who phone in are [lunatics] - certainly in Britain. ~ John Gimlette

Later the island was turned into a leper colony, a lunatic asylum, and a naval base. The government had only recently turned the island back into a prison. ~ Nelson Mandela

A child is a curly, dimpled lunatic. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

After three hours, I come back to the waiting room. It is a cosmetic surgery office, so a little like a hotel lobby, underheated and expensively decorated, with candy in little dishes, emerald-green plush chairs, and upscale fashion magazines artfully displayed against the wall.
A young woman comes in, frantic to get a pimple "zapped" before she sees her family over the holidays. An older woman comes in with her daughter for a follow-up visit to a face-lift. She is wearing a scarf and dark glasses. The nurse examines her bruises right out in the waiting room.
And you are in the operating room having your body and your gender legally altered. I feel like laughing, but I know it makes me sound like a lunatic. ~ Joan Nestle

We have much to be judged on when he comes, slums and battlefields and insane asylums, but these are the symptoms of our illness and the result of our failures in love. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

As a last resort, with the orange nearing my face and my back pressing hard against the sharp edge of my broadcast table, I grabbed my phone to tell Carlos that if I didn't make it home tonight, it wasn't because I didn't love him, or didn't want to watch a documentary on special scientific graphs, or was too obsessed with my job to relax and enjoy a good meal and some television. It was only because I was zapped out of existence by a lunatic Non-John Peters. And that, in fact, I do love Carlos, and I would want nothing more than to watch a documentary on scientific graphs over some homemade linguini, or go out to eat again, or whatever.

But then, as I grabbed my phone, I thought: That's way too long to write for a text. So I just hit John Peters upside the head with it... ~ Joseph Fink

Used with due abstinence, hope acts as a healthful tonic; intemperately indulged, as an enervating opiate. The visions of future triumph, which at first animate exertion, if dwelt upon too intently, will usurp the place of the stern reality; and, noble objects will be contemplated, not for their own inherent worth, but on account of the day-dreams they engender. Thus hope, aided by imagination, makes one man a hero, another a somnambulist, and a third a lunatic; while it renders them all enthusiasts. ~ James Fitzjames Stephen

I'm adding 'canine' to my searches," I said. "And 'instinct.'" "Whatever. I'm adding 'lunatic. ~ Kathy Reichs

If we were to judge nature by its common sense or likelihood, we wouldn't believe the world existed. In nature, improbabilities are the one stock in trade. The whole creation is one lunatic fringe ... No claims of any and all revelations could be so far-fetched as a single giraffe. ~ Annie Dillard

Their arguments always went like this. The angrier Madeline got, the more freakishly calm Ed became, until he reached a point where he sounded like a hostage negotiator dealing with a lunatic and a ticking bomb. It was infuriating. ~ Liane Moriarty

People get dumped all the time, and it sucks, but you know what you do? You cry; you smash a few plates; you go to a karaoke bar and make a fool of yourself. However you choose to deal with it, it's your shit to handle. It's your burden to carry. You don't drag other people down with you. You don't turn up on the doorstep in the middle of the night acting like a raving lunatic. ~ Lang Leav

Where does South Africa find herself now in the post-apartheid dilemma? Is this country still a believer in the country of blood, milk and honey, does she seek perfection in the reports of minorities, the land of thirst, of afro and political activists who were active in 'the struggle' what happened to their children, their wives and their husbands? There are no longer straitjackets and cold showers in the lunatic asylum. Banging their heads against the walls. Banging, banging and banging away like an empty drum. Every generation wants to change the world. There must be unification of some kind. Students brought together by protest marches. ~ Abigail George

Your answer is the logical, coherent answer an absolutely normal person would give: It's a tie! A lunatic, however, would say that what I have around my neck is a ridiculous, useless bit of colored cloth tied in a very complicated way, which makes it harder to get air into your lungs and difficult to turn your neck. I have to be careful when I'm anywhere near a fan, or I could be strangled by this bit of cloth.
If a lunatic were to ask me what this tie is for, I would have to say, absolutely nothing. It's not even purely decorative, since nowadays it's become a symbol of slavery, power, aloofness. The only really useful function a tie serves is the sense of relief when you get home and take it off; you feel as if you've freed yourself from something, though quite what you don't know. ~ Paulo Coelho

Of course! When it's a question of anything stupid and pathetic and devoid of humor or wit,
you're the man, you tragedian. Well, I am not. I don't care a fig for all your romantics of
atonement. You wanted to be executed and to have your head chopped off, you lunatic! For this
imbecile ideal you would suffer death ten times over. You are willing to die, you coward, but not
to live. The devil, but you shall live! It would serve you right if you were condemned to the
severest of penalties. ~ Hermann Hesse

I had, toward the last, been shut off from all visitors, and so when the lawyer, Peter A. Hendricks, came and told me that friends of mine were willing to take charge of me if I would rather be with them than in the asylum, I was only too glad to give my consent. ~ Nellie Bly

My 'go to' workout is called the Asylum from Beach Body. It's intense training with lots of intervals, core work. It's hard! I travel a lot, so I can take it on the road with me and do it in a hotel room. ~ Apolo Ohno

This will happen again," Nathaniel explained. "Even if we manage not to hurt each other, eventually one of us will get sick or get bored, or someone else will get in the way. Maybe they won't mean to. Maybe my mom will need me when she's older and I'll have to go to her - "
"I'd go with you," Kelly offered.
" - or maybe one of us will die young or maybe you'll fall out of love with me because emotions can't be controlled. Or maybe we'll get to a point where we want to hurt each other. I know that's hard to imagine now, but relationships only get more complicated as time goes by."
"So we better avoid them?" Kelly snapped. "Why do you even leave the house? Why aren't you constantly scared of getting hit by a car or shot by some random lunatic?"
Nathaniel exhaled." I never was before. Not until I fell in love with you. ~ Jay Bell

Hunter was bipolar, for crying out loud. He had checked into the nut house on more than one occasion and, honestly, I was already starting to feel the anxiety of living together. I would need to get my martial arts skills up to par to deal with this lunatic. I knew that I would also need to pick up a copy of Kill Bill at my next convenience and take notes as I watched, just in case a fight happened to break out in the kitchen. Also, at night, I had decided that I would need to sleep with either a small pistol or a flamboyant hunting knife under my pillow for a quick grab, in case he skipped his meds one night and decided to kill me. I needed to be prepared for the unthinkable. ~ Chase Brooks

If a lunatic scribbles a jumble of mathematical symbols it does not follow that the writing means anything merely because to the inexpert eye it is indistinguishable from higher mathematics. ~ Eric Temple Bell

I believe that in any initiative, you can't have a flavor of the month. When you believe something is profound in a company, you can not be a logical leader. You have to go to the lunatic fringe. There is no way that logic is what you need to change people. ~ Jack Welch

People were always chasing after some leader or another, and stumbling from one superstition to the next, cheering His Majesty one day and giving the most disgusting incendiary speeches in Parliament the next, and none of it ever amounted to anything in the end! If this could be miniaturized by a factor of a a million and reduced, as it were, to the dimensions of a single head, the result would be precisely the image of the unaccountable, forgetful, ignorant conduct and the demented hopping around that has always been the image of a lunatic. ~ Robert Musil

You comin' or what? Ryker returned.
Layne glanced through Merry and Cal, nodded and followed Ryker. It would seem big, scary, badass, looking like a raving lunatic Ryker needed his BFF.
Fuck. ~ Kristen Ashley

My father was my greatest inspiration. He was a lunatic. ~ Spike Milligan

But then in all his words if not deeds Jefferson was so beautifully human, so eminently vague, so entirely dishonest but not in any meretricious way. Rather it was a passionate form of self-delusion that rendered Jefferson as president and as man (not to mention as writer of tangled sentences and lunatic metaphors) confusing even to his admirers. Proclaiming the unalienable rights of man for everyone (excepting slaves, Indians, women and those entirely without property), Jefferson tried to seize the Floridas by force, dreamed of a conquest of Cuba, and after his illegal purchase of Louisiana sent a military governor to rule New Orleans against the will of its inhabitants. ~ Gore Vidal

Saying that, he was suddenly himself again, despite his lunatic hair and eyes: a man whose personal dignity went so deep as to be nearly invisible ...
It was more than diginity. Integrity? Wholeness? Like a block of wood not carved.
The infinite possibility, the unlimited and unqualified wholeness of being of the uncommitted, the nonacting, the uncarved: the being who, being nothing but himself, is everything. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Do Mom and Dad know you're dating a homicidal lunatic? (Madaug)
No, and if you tell them, I'll superglue your fingertips to your keyboard. (Eric) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

OLD MARX He can't think. London is damp, in every room someone coughs. He never did like winter. He rewrites past manuscripts time and again, without passion. The yellow paper is fragile as consumption. Why does life race stubbornly toward destruction? But spring returns in dreams, with snow that doesn't speak in any known tongue. And where does love fit within his system? Where you find blue flowers. He despises anarchists, idealists bore him. He receives reports from Russia, far too detailed. The French grow rich. Poland is common and quiet. America never stops growing. Blood is everywhere, perhaps the wallpaper needs changing. He begins to suspect that poor humankind will always trudge across the old earth like the local lunatic shaking her fists at an unseen God. ~ Adam Zagajewski

The lunatic fringe is more like a Spanish shawl, where the fringe makes up the entire garment. ~ Aldous Huxley