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mad quotes

  • Some deemed him wondrous wise, and some believed him mad.

    -James Beattie
    The Minstrel, bk.1, stanza16.

  • It is the same each time with progress. First they ignore you, then they say you are mad, then dangerous, then there's a pause, and then you can't find anyone who disagrees.

    -Tony (Anthony Neil Wedgwood) Benn
      Speech at the Labour Party Conference, Oct.

  • I said of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth,What doeth it?

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Ecclesiastes 2:2.

  • Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    Acts of the  Apostles 26:24.

  • We loved, sirused to meet: How sad and bad and mad it was But then, how it was sweet!

    - Robert Browning
      Dramatis Personae,'Confessions', stanza 9.

  • All poets are mad.

    - Robert pseudonym DemocritusJunior Burton
    Anatomy of Melancholy,'Democritus to the Reader'.

  • If you fear making anyone mad, then you ultimately probe for the lowest common denominator of human achievement.

    -Jimmy (James Earl) Carter
      Address to the Future Farmers of  America, Kansas City, 9 Nov.

  • Randolph and the Mahdi have occupied my thoughts about equally. The Mahdi pretends to be half mad, but is very sane in reality. Randolph occupies exactly the converse position.

    -of Salisbury
      Of Lord Randolph Churchill. Letter to Lady John Manners, May.

  • For the great Gaels of Ireland Are the men that God made mad, For all their wars are merry, And all their songs are sad.

    - G(ilbert) K(eith) Chesterton
    Ballad of the White Horse, bk.2.

  • Mad about the boy, It's pretty funny but I'm mad about the boy. He has a gayappeal That makes me feel There may be something sad about the boy.

    - Sir Noe«  l Peirce Coward
      'Mad  About the Boy' (song).

  • Filled with her love, may I be rather grown Mad with much heart than idiot with none.

    -John Donne
    c.1595  Elegies, no.10,'The Bracelet'.

  • My heart's so full of joy, That I shall do some wild extravagance Of love in public; and the foolish world, Which knows not tenderness, will think me mad.

    -John Dryden
      All for Love, or The World Well Lost, act 2.

  •    There is a pleasure sure, In being mad, that none but madmen know!

    -John Dryden
    The Spanish Friar, act1, sc.1.

  • Doeg, though without knowing how or why, Made still a blund'ring kind of melody; Spurred boldly on, and dashed through thick and thin, Through sense and nonsense, never out nor in; Free from all meaning, whether good or bad, And in one word, heroically mad.

    -John Dryden
    Absalom and  Achitophel, pt.2, l.412^17.

  •    At first you may think I'm as mad as a hatter When I tell you a cat must have.

    -T(homas) S(tearns) Eliot
    THREE DIFFERENT NAMES1939  Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats,'The Naming of Cats'.

  •   Oh! he is mad is he? Then I hope he will bite some of my other generals.

    -George II
    c.1759  Replying to remarks made about General James Wolfe by the Duke of Newcastle. Quoted in HenryBeckles Wilson Life and Letters of  James Wolfe (1909), ch.17.

  • There's a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu, There's a little marble cross below the town, There'sa broken-heartedwomantendsthegrave of Mad Carew, And theYellow God forever gazes down.

    -J Milton Hayes
    The Green Eye of theYellow God. US  Republican  statesman  and 19th  President  (1877^81).  Under his  presidency,  the  country  recovered  commercial  prosperity, and his  policy  included  the  reform  of  the  civil  service  and  the conciliation of the Southern states.

  • Mad from life's history, Glad to death's mystery, Swift to be hurled Anywhere, anywhere, Out of the world!

    -Honorius of Autun
      'The Bridge of Sighs'.

  •    I inherited a vile melancholy from my father, which has made me mad all my life, at least not sober.

    - Samuel known as Dr Johnson Johnson
      Remark,16 Sep. Quoted in  James Boswell The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785).

  • 'Tis true, I'm broke! Vows, oaths, and all I had Of credit lost. And I am now run mad, Or do upon my self some desperate ill; This sadness makes no approaches, but to kill.

    - Ben Jonson
    The Underwood,'An Elegy', no.40 (published1640).

  • Don't get mad, get even.

    -Joseph Patrick Kennedy
    Attributed.

  • But then they danced down the street like dingle- dodies, and Ishambled afteras I've beendoing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'

    -Jack (John) Kerouac
      On The Road, pt.1, ch.1.

  • Every one is more or less mad on one point.

    - (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling
      Plain Tales from the Hills,'On the Strength of a Likeness'.

  • Mad, bad, and dangerous to know.

    - Lady Caroline Lamb
      Of Byron.  Journal entry, Mar, after meeting the poet at a ball. Quoted in Elizabeth  Jenkins Lady Caroline Lamb (1932), ch.6.

  • It occurred to her that she wasgoing mad† Yet it did not seem to her that she was even slightly mad; but rather that people who were not as obsessed as she was with the inchoate world mirrored in the newspapers were all out of touch with an awful necessity.

    - Doris May ne  e Tayler Lessing
      The Golden Notebook,'Free Women 5'.

  • O bom era ter uma intelige"  ncia e na‹  o entender. Era uma be"  n c° a‹  o estranha como a de ter loucura sem ser doida. Era um desinteresse manso em rela c° a‹  o a'  s coisas ditas do intelecto, uma do c° ura de estupidez. What was good was to have intelligence and yet not understand. It was a strange blessing like experiencing madness without being mad. It was a gentle lack of interest with respect to the so-called things of the intellect, a sweet stupidity.

    - Clarice Lispector
      Uma  Aprendizagem ou O Livro dos Prazeres, 'Luminesce"  ncia' (translated as  An  Apprenticeship or TheBook of Delights,1986).

  • I must be mad, or very tired, When the curve of a blue bay beyond a railroad track Is shrill and sweet to me like the sudden springing of a tune, And the sight of a white church above thin trees in a city square Amazes my eyes as though it were the Parthenon.

    - Amy Lowell
      'Meeting-House Hill'.

  •   If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursed lot.

    - Claude originally Festus Claudius McKay
      Harlem Shadows,'If  We Must Die'.

  • I shall run mad with joy.

    -Thomas Middleton
      The Changeling (with William Rowley), act 2, sc.2.

  • And he, whose fustian's so sublimely bad, It is not poetry, but prose run mad.

    - Alexander Pope
      'An Epistle to DrArbuthnot', l.187^8.

  • The worst of madmen is a saint run mad.

    - Alexander Pope
      Imitations of Horace, bk.1, epistle 6, l.27.

  •    Listentothemmoan, butthosepeoplewill be going mad if we beat West Germany by a goal in the World Cup Final.

    - SirAlf(red) Ramsey
      Of press criticism after England lost againstWest Germany in February, several months before England won theWorld Cup. Quoted in Bryon Butler The Official History of the Football Association (1986).

  • Dear Madam,You are stark mad, and therefore the fitter for me to love; and that is the reason I think I can never leave to beYour humble servant.

    -JohnWilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester
    c.1675  Letter to his mistress, the actress Elizabeth Barry. In The Letters ofJohnWilmot, Earl of Rochester, edited byJeremy Treglown (1980).

  • Ithink for my part one half of the nation ismadand the other not very sound.

    -Tobias George Smollett
      TheAdventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves, ch.6.

  • The Labour Party's election programme†is the most fantastic and impracticable programme ever put before the electors. This is not socialism. It is bolshevism run mad.

    - Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden
      Radio broadcast,17 Oct.

  • Well, maybe like Casy says, a fellowain't got a soul of his own, but on'ya piece of a big onean then† Then it don'matter. Then I'll be all aroun' in the dark. I'll be everywherewherever you look.Wherever they's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there.Wherever they's a cop beatin'up aguy,I'll bethere.If Casyknowed, why,I'll be inthewayguysyell whenthey'remad an'I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an'they know supper's ready. An' when our folks eat the stuff they raise an' live in the houses they buildwhy, I'll be there. See?

    -John Ernest Steinbeck
      The Grapes ofWrath, ch.28.

  • Though they go mad they shall be sane Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again; Though lovers be lost love shall not; And death shall have no dominion.

    - Dylan Marlais Thomas
      'And Death Shall Have No Dominion'.

  • Men will always be mad, and those who think they can cure them are the maddest of all.

    -Voltaire pseudonym of  Fran c° ois Marie Arouet
      Letter.

Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations Copyright © 2010 by Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Published by Wiley, Hoboken, NJ. Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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