"Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one. At one time it had been a sign of madness to believe that the Earth goes round the Sun; today, to believe the past is inalterable. He might be alone in holding that belief, and if alone, then a lunatic. But the thought of being a lunatic did not greatly trouble him; the horror was that he might also be wrong."

Madness, Belief, Truth, Reality

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"Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one. At one time it had been a sign of madness to believe that the Earth goes round the Sun; today, to believe the past is inalterable. He might be alone in holding that belief, and if alone, then a lunatic. But the thought of being a lunatic did not greatly trouble him; the horror was that he might also be wrong."

Exlpore more Madness quotes

"Sometimes I wonder if the human race isn't collectively as mad as a sack of door knobs."

Jasper Fforde, British Novelist

Madness, Humanity, Absurdity, Reflection

"She had spears of straw and grass in her hair, not like Ophelia gone mad through contact with Hamlet's madness, but because she had slept in some stable loft."

Victor Hugo, French Author

Madness, Life, Mental, Truth

"I paid, got up, walkedto the door, openedit.I heard the mansay, "that guy'snuts."out on the street Iwalked northfeelingcuriouslyhonored."

Charles Bukowski, American Author

Madness, Judgment, Honor, Walking

"I think we all have madness in us, it's just that I've realized mine and found a way to let it out."

John Glover, American Actor

Madness,

"We derive our vitality from our store of madness."

Emile M. Cioran, Romanian Philosopher

Madness, Vitality

"Sanity calms, but madness is more interesting."

John Russell, American Actor

Madness, Sanity

"Love is merely a madness; and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do; and the reason why they are not so punish'd and cured is that the lunacy is soordinary that the whippers are in love too."

William Shakespeare, English Dramatist

Madness, Love, Truth, Regret, Wisdom

"Wherever a choice has had to be made between the man of reason and the madman, the world has unhesitatingly followed the madman. For the madman appeals to what is fundamental, to passion and the instincts; the philosophers to what is superficial and supererogatory - reason."

Aldous Huxley, English Novelist

Madness, Reason, Choice, Instinct

"I don't think you can rely on Iran. I don't think you can rely on other radicals like the Taliban. They dispatched Al Qaida to bomb New York and Washington. What were they thinking? Were they that stupid? They weren't stupid. There is an irrationality there, and there is madness in this method."

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Leader

Madness, Thinking, Washington

"When a hundred men stand together each of them loses his mind and gets another one."

Friedrich Nietzsche, German Philosopher

Madness, Mind, Behavior, Social, Truth

Explore more quotes by George Orwell

"Mankind is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell."

Civilization

"How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?Winston thought. "By making him suffer, he said."Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own?..."

Power

"Language ought to be the joint creation of poets and manual workers."

Creation

"He was a lonely ghost uttering a truth that nobody would ever hear."

Isolation

"It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it; consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning."

Fear

"Sooner or later it would happen: strength would change into consciousness."

Strength

"The paperweight was the room he was in, and the coral was Julia's life and his own, fixed in a sort of eternity at the heart of the crystal."

Memory

"Do you know why you're here? Shall I tell you why we brought you here? To cure you.To make you sane."

Mental Health

"Whatever is funny is subversive, every joke is ultimately a custard pie... a dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion."

Fun

"To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization."

Civilization