Lunatic Quotes - page 6

Finally I asked, "Um, Tom-are the uh, Alien Artifacts really art, or did you just say that to hassle Mother?” "They have to be art. Remember the First Law of Anthropology: if they're doing something you don't understand, it's either an isolated lunatic, a religious ritual, or art.”. (John Barnes)
The characteristics the modern mind prides itself on are precisely those of madness. There is no one more logical than the lunatic, more concerned with the minutiae of cause and effect. Madmen are the greatest reasoners we know, and that trait is one of the accompaniments of their undoing. All their vital processes are shrunken into the mind. What is the one thing they lack that sane men possess? The ability to be careless, to disregard appearances, to relax and laugh at the world. They can't unbend, can't gamble their whole existence, as did Pascal, on a fanciful wager. They can't do what religion has always asked: to believe in a justification of their lives that seems absurd. View quote
Ernest Becker