Voluntary Madness Quotes

Drunkenness is nothing but voluntary madness ~ Seneca.

We see that every external motion, act, gesture, whether voluntary or mechanical, organic or mental, is produced and preceded by internal feeling or emotion, will or volition, and thought or mind. ~ Helena Blavatsky

I know this much: if you gotta write, honey, you gotta write. Some call it a disease, some a madness. Ah, but I call it love. ~ Faith Sullivan

I've been wishing that there was someone just like him, and now that he's found me, I feel like he has the power to pull me though this madness that has been consuming me ~ E.K. Blair

It was strange what Chris was feeling within, but he didn't mind for he was loving her. ~ Moffat Machingura

The true test of one's commitment to liberty and private property rights doesn't come when we permit people to be free to do those voluntary things with which we agree. The true test comes when we permit people to be free to do those voluntary things with which we disagree. ~ Walter E. Williams

What was a surprise was when the dog answered his question.
'Want to play ball now,' Gabriel [the dog] declared in a very clear and precise voice.
Aaron opened his eyes and gazed up into the grinning face of the animal. There was no doubt now. The day's descent into madness was complete. He was, in fact, losing his mind. ~ Thomas E. Sniegoski

There was no more good or evil in this world than we imagine there to be, either out of greed or out of innocence. Or sometimes madness. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafon

In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, man's dispute with madness was dramatic debate in which he confronted the secret powers of the world; the experience of madness was clouded by images of the Fall and the Will of God, of the Beast and the Metamorphosis, and of all the marvelous secrets of Knowledge ~ Michel Foucault

Poverty is easy to bear if it is only temporary, easier still if it is an entirely voluntary burden. ~ D.E. Stevenson

The attempt to redefine the family as a purely voluntary arrangement grows out of the modern delusion that people can keep all their options open all the time. ~ Christopher Lasch

So many of us limit our praying because we are not reckless in our confidence in God. In the eyes of those who do not know God, it is madness to trust Him, but when we pray in the Holy Spirit we begin to realize the resources of God, that He is our perfect heavenly Father, and we are His children. ~ Oswald Chambers

It takes madness to find out madness. ~ Lady Gregory

Nearly all Americans have ancestors who braved the oceans-liberty-loving risk takers in search of an ideal-the largest voluntary migrations in recorded history. Across the Pacific, across the Atlantic, they came from every point on the compass-many passing beneath the Statue of Liberty-with fear and vision, with sorrow and adventure, fleeing tyranny or terror, seeking haven, and all seeking hope ... Immigration is not just a link to America's past; it's also a bridge to America's future. ~ George H. W. Bush

An obsession, a mania, Lib supposed it could be called. A sickness of the mind. Hysteria, as that awful doctor had named it? Anna reminded Lib of a princess under a spell in a fairy tale. What could restore the girl to ordinary life? Not a prince. A magical herb from the world's end? Some shock to jolt a poisoned bite of apple out of her throat? No, something simple as a breath of air: reason. What if Lib shook the girl awake this very minute and said, Come to your senses!

But that was part of the definition of madness, Lib supposed, the refusal to accept that one was mad. Standish's wards were full of such people.

Besides, could children ever be considered quite of sound mind? Seven was counted the age of reason, but Lib's sense of seven-year-olds was that they still brimmed over with imagination. Children lived to play. Of course they could be put to work, but in spare moments they took their games as seriously as lunatics did their delusions. Like small gods, children formed their miniature worlds out of clay, or even just words. To them, the truth was never simple.

But Anna was eleven, which was a far cry from seven, Lib argued with herself. Other eleven-year-olds knew when they'd eaten and when they hadn't; they were old enough to tell make-believe from fact. There was something very different about - very wrong with - Anna O'Donnell. ~ Emma Donoghue

Philanthropy should be voluntary. ~ Bill Gates

Life without utopia is suffocating, for the multitude at least: threatened otherwise with petrifaction, the world must have a new madness. ~ Emile M. Cioran

At bottom, you see, we are not Homo sapiens as all. Our core is madness. The prime directive is murder. What Darwin was too polite to say, my friends, is that we came to rule the earth not because we were the smartest, or even the meanest, but because we have always been the craziest, most murderous motherfuckers in the jungle. And that is what the Pulse exposed five days ago. ~ Stephen King

What is madness? I merely speak those things that be not as though they were. ~ Donovan M. Neal

[Jack Sparrow]'s a blast to play. I'll be in a deep, dark depression saying goodbye to him. I'll keep the costume and just prance around the house, entertain the kids ... I mean, at a certain point, the madness must stop, but for the moment, I can't say that he's done. ~ Johnny Depp

That's how the madness of the world tries to colonize you: from the outside in, forcing you to live in its reality. ~ Jeff VanderMeer

I have tried to protect myself against men, to react against their madness to discern its source; I have listened and I have seen
and I have been afraid of acting for the same motives or for any motive whatever, of believing in the same ghosts or in any other ghost, of letting myself be engulfed by the same intoxications or by some other ... afraid, in short, of raving in common and of expiring in a horde of ecstasies. ~ Emil Cioran

The store owner had settled himself behind the counter again and was reaching for his
book. "The journey will test your sanity." He spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, as though
there were nothing extraordinary about his words. "And once you start walking down
that road, there is no turning back. You will start craving the rush. One can become
addicted to madness, you know. Develop a taste for it." He looked down at the book
in his hands, frowned and turned a page. ~ Natasha Mostert

I know that some believe that voluntary prayer in schools should be restricted to a moment of silence. We already have the right to remain silent - we can take our Fifth Amendment. ~ Ronald Reagan

Of all the arguments against voluntary euthanasia, the most influential is the 'slippery slope': once we allow doctors to kill patients, we will not be able to limit the killing to those who want to die. ~ Peter Singer

Reading is a form of madness, and when you think it is necessary to you, you must relinquish your place among the living and enter the land of shades, feeling all the emotions you imagine the shades must feel; among them envy- for the living are outside, in constant motion- and it's paradoxical but necessary other, complacency, for the world is not worth taking notice of. ~ Ira Singh

Sanity is a less severe form of insanity. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

But Agon did not force this prison upon you. He is the jailer of many, but you are the one who possesses the keys to your own cell. He may hunt you, but he did not lock you away here, nor force upon you the choices you have made these last few years. Your prison is in your mind, where you limit yourself, where you take on the voice of the Beast and speak to yourself the way he would if he could only get to you. But he does not need to if you will do the work for him. Fear is what locked you away, Ifferon, and fear is a tool of Agon. When you fear you open the gate that lets him into your mind. His greatest weapon is fear, for it drives strong men to madness. So why then be afraid? ~ Dean F. Wilson

Men are not therefore put to death, or punished for that their theft proceedeth from election; but because it was noxious and contrary to men's preservation, and the punishment conducing to the preservation of the rest, inasmuch as to punish those that do voluntary hurt, and none else, frameth and maketh men's wills such as men would have them. ~ Thomas Hobbes

We all know your idea is crazy. The question is whether it is crazy enough. ~ Niels Bohr

In 2005, my mad half, HER was born ...
ME & HER: a Memoir of Madness, 2012. ~ Karen Tyrrell

And men, whose reason long was blind, From cells of madness unconfined, Oft lose whole years of darker mind. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

So many bright futures consigned to the ashes of the past.So many dreams lost in the madness that had engulfed us.Except for a few widely scattered shouts of joy,the survivors of the abyss sat hollow-eyed and silent, trying to comprehend a world without war. ~ Paul Fussell

The invasion of Iraq turned the region into a cauldron. And when the new American president decided the time had come to withdraw, the cauldron boiled over. And then there was this folly we called the Arab Spring. Mubarak must go! Gaddafi must go! Assad must go!" He shook his head slowly. "It was madness, absolute madness. And now we are left with this. ISIS controls a swath of territory the size of the United Kingdom, right on the doorstep of Europe. Even Bin Laden would have never dared to dream of such a thing. And what does the American president tell us? ISIS is not Islamic. ISIS is the jayvee team. ~ Daniel Silva

We're capable of understanding that someone has to drop an atomic bomb on a town of innocent civilians, but not that others have to cut up prostitutes who spread disease and moral depravity in the slums of London. Hence we call the former realism and the latter madness. ~ Jo Nesbo

It is not the darkness which overwhelms, it is the single brightness departing. ~ Gerry, A Journey Into Madness - Ralph Hartman

In 2005, my mad half, HER was born...
ME & HER: a Memoir of Madness, 2012. ~ Karen Tyrrell

It appears to be uncertain whether the journey of Mary with her husband was obligatory or voluntary ... Women were liable to a capitation tax, if this enrolment also involved taxation. But, apart from any legal necessity, it may easily be imagined that at such a moment Mary would desire not to be left alone. The cruel suspicion of which she had been the subject, and which had almost led to the breaking off of her betrothal (Matt. 1: 19) would make her cling all the more to the protection of her husband. ~ Frederic Farrar

The two halves of my barely whole being rioted, chained in place and snarling in protest of the other's presence. The bondage allowed them just close enough to drive each other to venomous rebellion, yet never permitting the chance to make contact; to fight. There would be no battle, no resolution. The end result sounded more and more like insanity. So this is love? It truly is mad ... ~ Aubrea Summer

Man, by his very nature, tends to give himself an explanation of the world into which he is born. And this is what distinguishes him from the other species. Every individual, even the least intelligent, the lowest of outcasts, from childhood on gives himself some explanation of the world. And with it he manages to live. And without it, he would sink into madness. ~ Elsa Morante

My Swaraj will be not be a result of murder of others but a voluntary act of continuous self-sacrifice. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

May the dead forgive me, I can do no other
But as I am commanded; to do more is madness." - Ismene ~ Sophocles

Madness and genius are two sides to the same coin. ~ John Hendy

Woe to the suicides! I believe that there can be none more miserable than they. Oh, there are some who remain proud and fierce even in hell, in spite of their certain knowledge and contemplation of the absolute truth; there are some fearful ones who have given themselves over to Satan and his proud spirit entirely. For such, hell is voluntary and ever consuming; they are tortured by their own choice. For they have cursed themselves, cursing God and life. And they will burn in the fire of their own wrath forever and yearn for death and annihilation. But they will not attain to death. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

And our madness-measure is always changing. Probably we are less tolerant of madness now than at any period in history. There is no place for it. Crucially, there is no time for it.

Going mad takes time. Getting sane takes time. ~ Jeanette Winterson

The general rule of law is, that the noblest of human productions -- knowledge, truths ascertained, conceptions, and ideas -- become, after voluntary communication to others, free as the air to common use."
~Louis D. Brandeis ~ Louis D. Brandeis

It was him taught Idi Amin's lads how to extract voluntary confessions with the aid of an electric cattle-prod. Our chum likes them English and he likes them with a dirty past. He ~ John Le Carre