Mark Twain Quotes About Insanity

• When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.

  Mark Twain

  Funny, Life, Depression

  Mark Twain, Bob Blaisdell (2013). “The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain”, p.31, Courier Corporation

• The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.

  Mark Twain

  Friendship, Inspiration, Perfect

  Christian Science bk. 1, ch. 5 (1907)

• Let us consider that we are all partially insane. It will explain us to each other; it will unriddle many riddles; it will make clear and simple many things which are involved in haunting and harassing difficulties and obscurities now.

  Mark Twain

  Simple, Insanity, Insane

  Mark Twain (2010). “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg: And Other Stories”, p.161, The Floating Press

• Heaven knows insanity was disreputable enough, long ago; but now that the lawyers have got to cutting every gallows rope and picking every prison lock with it, it is become a sneaking villainy that ought to hang and keep on hanging its sudden possessors until evil-doers should conclude that the safest plan was to never claim to have it until they came by it legitimately. The very calibre of the people the lawyers most frequently try to save by the insanity subterfuge ought to laugh the plea out of the courts, one would think.

  Mark Twain

  Cutting, Thinking, Long Ago

• Let us consider that we are all insane. It will explain us to each other. It will unriddle many riddles

  Mark Twain

  Insanity, Insane, Criminal Mind

  Mark Twain (2010). “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg: And Other Stories”, p.161, The Floating Press

• Really, what we want now, is not laws against crime, but a law against insanity. That is where the true evil lies.

  Mark Twain

  Lying, True Evil, Law

  Mark Twain, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Mark Twain: All 13 Novels, Short Stories, Poetry and Essays”, p.2441, GENERAL PRESS

• Is not this insanity plea becoming rather common? Is it not so common that the reader confidently expects to see it offered in every criminal case that comes before the courts?... Really, what we want now, is not laws against crime, but a law against insanity.

  Mark Twain

  Law, Insanity, Want

  Mark Twain, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Mark Twain: All 13 Novels, Short Stories, Poetry and Essays”, p.2441, GENERAL PRESS

• ... the English alphabet is pure insanity..., It can hardly spell any word in the language with any degree of certainty.

  Mark Twain

  Insanity, Degrees, Alphabet

  Mark Twain (2013). “Autobiography of Mark Twain”, p.268, Univ of California Press

• Once I talked to the inmates of an insane asylum in Hartford. I have talked to idiots a thousand times, but only once to the insane.

  Mark Twain

  Insanity, Crazy People, Insane

• ...we all know that in all matters of mere opinion that [every] man is insane-just as insane as we are...we know exactly where to put our finger upon his insanity: it is where his opinion differs from ours....All Democrats are insane, but not one of them knows it. None but the Republicans. All the Republicans are insane, but only the Democrats can perceive it. The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.

  Mark Twain

  Men, Perfect, Insanity

  Christian Science bk. 1, ch. 5 (1907)

• But we are all insane, anyway. Note the mountain-climbers.

  Mark Twain

  Insanity, Insane, Mountain

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.298, Courier Corporation

• No one is sane, straight along, year in and year out, and we all know it. Our insanities are of varying sorts, and express themselves in varying forms-fortunately harmless forms as a rule.

  Mark Twain

  Years, Insanity, Form

  Mark Twain (2014). “Mark Twain’s Letters & Speeches (Annotated Edition)”, p.811, Jazzybee Verlag

• We have an insanity plea that would have saved Cain.

  Mark Twain

  Law, Insanity, Cain

  Address on the 4th of July, delivered 4 July 1899, London, England

• The way it is now, the asylums can hold the sane people, but if we tried to shut up the insane we should run out of building materials.

  Mark Twain

  Funny, Running, People

  Mark Twain (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Mark Twain (Illustrated)”, p.5637, Delphi Classics

• You perceive, now, that these things are all impossible except in a dream. You perceive that they are pure and puerile insanities, the silly creations of an imagination that is not conscious of its freaks - in a word, that they are a dream, and you the maker of it. The dream-marks are all present; you should have recognized them earlier.

  Mark Twain

  Dream, Silly, Should Have

  Mark Twain (2014). “The Mysterious Stranger: and Other Stories”, p.180, Diderot Publishing

You May Also Like:

Charles Dickens

Ernest Hemingway

Oscar Wilde

Edgar Allan Poe

Jack London

Hal Holbrook

William Faulkner