Sanity Quotes

“In Peru," said Gonzalo, "they cure madness by placing the madman next to a flowing river. The water flows, he throws stones into it, his feelings begin to flow again, and he is cured.”
― Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin Volume 2 1934-1939

“What an ass you are!” Satan said. “Are you so unobservant as not to have found out that sanity and happiness are an impossible combination? No sane man can be happy, for to him life is real, and he sees what a fearful thing it is.”
― Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger

“I have clients who are nowhere near as insane as their family is, but they're the people who have been targeted with the mental illnesses because that’s convenient for everyone involved.”
― Jordan B. Peterson

“They say getting sober in AA is simple, but not easy. Just like winning the lottery, I guess.”
― Dmitry Dyatlov

“...I have sometimes imagined my own sanity as resting on the surface of a membrane, a thin and fragile membrane that can easily be ripped open, plunging me into the abyss of madness, where I join the tumbling souls whose membranes have likewise been pieced over the ages. Sometimes, when my thoughts are especially fevered, I can visualize the agent of this piercing. It is a watchful presence at the edge of things, silent and dripping, a stranger in a raincoat... When we fall into such psychosis, there are no other membranes below to catch and protect us. And the horror and helplessness of the fall are intensified by an uncaring world.”
― Ron Powers, No One Cares About Crazy People: The Chaos and Heartbreak of Mental Health in America

“He could feel himself gladly abandoning sanity.”
― A.L. Kennedy, Original Bliss

“Sanity is the thread through the labyrinth of the Minotaur. Once cut, or unravelled, all that lies in wait are gloomy tunnels unfathomable by any map, and what hides there is a beast in human form, wearing our own face.
We are what we fear.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Frankissstein: A Love Story

“If plain run is good enough for I, you, we, they, why isn't it good enough for he, she, it? Because we have no choice in the matter. The decision was made by those who fixed our grammar at a certain stage of its evolution, and their decision will probably stand forever.”
― E.D. Hirsch Jr., Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know

“FIGARO. Of course. Ever since people started noticing that in time yesterday’s inanity turns into today’s wisdom, and that little old lies, planted haphazardly, grow into vast and mighty truths, there have been countless varieties! Truths you know but cannot reveal, for not every truth is suitable for telling. Truths you repeat but don’t believe, for not every truth is worth believing.”
― Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, The Barber of Seville / The Marriage of Figaro / The Guilty Mother

“The question of who is, and who is not, "crazy" is at the heart of "Nightmare" — how sanity is defined, and how much depends upon who is doing the defining.

"Nightmare" was rejected by College Humor, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, and the Saturday Evening Post, all magazines that had regularly and eagerly published Fitzgerald's work.... in 1932, this was not what readers expected under the byline "F. Scott Fitzgerald," and therefore not what editors wanted.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, I'd Die for You and Other Lost Stories

“In a world so unwell,
few people are sane,
and even while in hell,
they don't fight in vain.”
― Ana Claudia Antunes, A-Z of Happiness: Tips for Living and Breaking Through the Chain that Separates You from Getting That Dream Job

“The truth is the truth. Denying it doesn't make it go away.”
― Laurence Overmire

“The route back to sanity is to acknowledge your insanity.”
― Steven Magee

“One thing is sure. Entertainment is important. Without it, the entire human race would go mad within a matter of hours.”
― Colin Bennett, The entertainment bomb

“Grief breaks down all but the crazy; it's a secret of your profession, one people don't want to know.”
― Stewart O'Nan, A Prayer for the Dying

“Dear Superwoman, protect your tranquility and sanity. Remember that anything against authenticity is vanity.”
― Gift Gugu Mona, Woman of Virtue: Power-Filled Quotes for a Powerful Woman

“To call God’s calling into question is not really about questioning God. Rather, it’s about calling my sanity into question.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“ভ্রমর বিহীন কিছু ফুল
ভ্রমর বিহীন কিছু ফুল এখানেই ঝরেছিল রক্তের ভেতর
আম্র রাজহাঁস স্বর্ণডিম্বপ্রসু রাজহাঁস এখানেই
কাটা হয়েছিল- সুস্বাদু মাংসের গন্ধে পরিতৃপ্ত উনুন
দেখেছিল আকাশের অন্তহীন উনুনের তাপে শীতের কার্ডিগান
খুলে এক বালিকা দুই বুকে তার রেখেছে উত্তাপ
তার পিকনিক পার্ডেনের কাছেই কাটা হয়েছিল রাজহাঁস আমার
রক্তের ফুলগুলি ভ্রমর বিহীন ঝরে পড়েছিল সেদিন
রাজহাঁস ও ফুল বিষয়ক কবিতাগুলি আমি
মাংস রাঁধার জন্যই দিয়েছিলুম উনুনে
সাধ ছিল সে বালিকা পাবে বটে মাংসের সুঘ্রাণ
কারণ অনেক মাংস ঘেটেছি আমি
আমি দেখেছি মাংসের বায়ু পিত্ত কফ দেখেছি
এমনকি সত্ত্ব তম রজ এই তিনপ্রকার গুনও থাকে মাংসাশী শরীরে
তবু আমি এক জরায়ু থেকে বেরিয়ে আরেক জঠরে
খুঁজেছিলাম আমার সন্তানের মুখ-
আমার মৃত পিতার শরীর দেখে আমি বুঝেছিলুম
বেঁচে থাকা জরুরী আমার মা-র হতাশা দেখে
বুঝেছিলাম মৃত্যুও দরকারী হতে পারে জীবনের
তবু সকল জ্ঞানের পর কাঁটা ও কম্পাস বিহীন- আমি
আমি এক বালিকার জন্যে কেটে ফেলি আমার রাজহাঁস
কবিতার খাতা ঠেলে দিয়েছিলুম উনুনে এক বালিকার
জন্যে আমার চৈতন্যের ক্রন্দন আমি দেখে ফেলি
বীর্যরসে- তৎক্ষনাৎ আর দেরী নয় বলে
আমি জড়িয়ে ধরি অশোক-ষষ্ঠীর দিন সেই বালিকার শরীর
রক্তের ভেতর ভ্রমর বিহীন ফুলগুলি ফুটে ওঠে”
― ফালগুনী রায় ( Falguni Roy ), নষ্ট আত্মার টেলিভিসন

“Further, there is no trustworthy standard by which we can separate the "real" from the "unreal" aspects of phenomena. Such standards as exist are conventional: and correspond to convenience, not to truth. It is no argument to say that most men see the world in much the same way, and that this "way" is the true standard of reality: though for practical purposes we have agreed that sanity consists in sharing the hallucinations of our neighbours.”
― Underhill Evelyn, Mysticism, a study in the nature and development of man's spiritual consciousness - Scholar's Choice Edition

“Sometimes I think aint none of us pure crazy and aint none of us pure sane until the balance of us talks him that-a-way.”
― William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

“My own mental well-being is a noose resting on the curve of my breastbone, just waiting for some traumatic event to force the rope taut. But maybe it doesn’t have to be some life-altering event that pulls me under the tide, but rather something minor, insignificant, like a pebble thrown into the ocean of life.”
― Steena Holmes

“Madness is when people don't put "normal" in quotation marks”
― dilop

“It may drive us insane when we see the simple mathematics apparently failing in the system surrounding us: just a handful of wrongdoers oppressing the vast number of the wronged ones! But it’s not the truth, if we have a closer look at it… The unfortunate truth is that the majority of the wronged ones are shackled within their own periphery by fear, greed, egoism and many other trammels, but it’s not that they remain there all the time… They, now and again, come out of their periphery to register themselves among the wrongdoers whenever it suits them and then retreat again inside their periphery after serving their purposes. Once inside the periphery they are once again the innocent wronged ones… They can’t see the transition, as there are masks upon their faces, which restrict their vision: the masks of sanity, behind which they are allowed to commit all the insanities. And at times the mask of sanity appears so dreadful that insanity feels saner before it. The fanaticism, the terrorism, the cast-carnages! Inflicting punishment upon an insane person for his insanity! Beating him black and blue for a crime he isn’t even conscious of having committed! Just to protect honor! The honor, which doesn’t get tarnished by the heinous crimes they commit! But it gets tainted by an insane act from an insane person! What an irony!”
― Anurag Shrivastava, The Web of Karma

“Nobody in good health and sanity invites death.”
― Vincent Okay Nwachukwu, Weighty 'n' Worthy African Proverbs - Volume 1

“When you are with any of the vast majority of sane people who can talk, silence is usually as infrequent—and definitely as brief—as the sound of a fart.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana, On Friendship: A Satirical Essay

“Our effectiveness and efficiency in life depend upon the degree of agreement between reality and our perception of, knowledge of, and beliefs about reality.”
― Gary McLane

“Death is inevitable.
And those who are sane spend their entire lives in fear of it.”
― K. Weikel

“It takes a truly insane person to stop being sane and live a life of insanity.”
― Stephen Jerry Smith

“All of us have mental health issues; some of us just fake sanity better.”
― Runa Pigden

“Countless organisms are either cut or killed every four or so weeks, just to make us look civilized, sane, and mature through the state of our yard.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana