Martha Gellhorn - Brian Masters - Vincent van Gogh - Charles Manson - Marked For Death 1991 - Star Trek TV - Joseph Heller - David Attenborough TV - Edgar Allan Poe - Jean Dubuffet - George Santayana - C G Jung - Susan Sontag - Hermann Hesse - George Eliot - Mark Twain - Sarah Palin - Robert Tressell -
This is a sane man [Adolf Eichmann], and a sane man is capable of unrepentant, unlimited, planned evil. He was the genius bureaucrat, he was the powerful frozen mind which directed a gigantic organization; he is the perfect model of inhumanness; but he was not alone. Eager thousands obeyed him. Everyone could not have his special talents; many people were needed to smash a baby’s head against the pavement before the mother’s eyes, to urge a sick old man to rest and shoot him in the back of the head; there was endless work for willing hands. How many more like these exist everywhere? Martha Gellhorn, article Atlantic Monthly 1962, ‘Eichmann and the Private Conscience’
Shower while there were two dead bodies in the bathtub, and he [Dahmer] was sane. He drilled holes in the heads of living people to make them his unresisting companions, and he was sane. He ate a bicep which he fried in a skillet, tenderised and sprinkled with sauce, and he was sane. For hours he lay with corpses, hugging them, cherishing them, and he was sane. He kept eleven assorted heads and skulls, and two complete skeletons, for eventual use in a home-made temple, and he was sane. Brian Masters, The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer
Dear Theo ... It just won’t do for us to think that I am completely sane. Vincent van Gogh
Sane? That’s relative. Charles Manson
Yes the judge made a fool of himself. Again. And then he questions my sanity. I question his. Charles Manson
When did anyone ever accuse me of being sane? Marked For Death 1991 starring Steven Seagal & Keith David & Tom Wright & Joanna Pacula & Basil Wallace & Elizabeth Gracen & Danielle Harris & Al Israel & Michael Ralph et al, director Dwight H Little, Chico
I say now and for the record that Captain Kirk ordered the Enterprise across the neutral zone on his own initiative and is craving for glory. He is not sane. Star Trek s3e2: The Enterprise Incident s3e2, Spock
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind ... Or would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to. Joseph Heller, Catch-22
Our sanity to some degree depends on our understanding what goes on around us. David Attenborough, interview Brave New World with Stephen Hawking II: Technology, Channel 4 2011
I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity. Edgar Allan Poe
For me, insanity is super sanity. The normal is psychotic. Normal means lack of imagination, lack of creativity. Jean Dubuffet
Sanity is a madness put to good uses. George Santayana, The Essential Santayana: Selected Writings
Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you. C G Jung
Sanity is a cozy lie. Susan Sontag
When dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane. Hermann Hesse
Sane people did what their neighbors did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them. George Eliot, Middlemarch
Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination. Mark Twain
Sweat is my sanity. Sarah Palin
He had been working like a slave all his life and there was nothing to show for it – there was never anything to show for it. He thought of the man who had killed his wife and children. The jury had returned the usual verdict, ‘Temporary Insanity’. It never occurred to these people that the truth was that to continue to suffer hopelessly like this was evidence of permanent insanity. Robert Tressell, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist