Music, Art and Madness Quotations and Proverbs

* some views expressed in these quotations not neccesarily endorsed by the author of this file.
* for entertainment only - history is not an exact science - dates and quotes not guaranteed for accuracy.

Added for April 2008:

A poet begins in delight and ends in wisdom.

Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance.
  • Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784)
 Great things are not done by impluse, but by a series of small things brought together.
  • Vincent Van Gough
 Sound is like water. Analog is a warm bucketful slowly poured over your head and digital is the same water, same bucket only this time it's ice cubes dumped quickly. I know which is more pleasing to me.
  • Neil Young
 Genius . . . an infinite capacity for taking pains.
  • Jane Ellice Hopkins (1836 - 1904)
 Genius is an infinite capacity for giving pains.
  • Don Herold
 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 Kerouac (1922 - 1969) _On The Road_ [1957], pt. 1, ch. 1
 To what purpose, April, do you return again? Beauty is not enough. [...] Not only under ground are the brains of men Eaten by maggots. Life in itself Is nothing, An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. It is not enough that yearly, down this hill, April Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.
  • -Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950)
 Everything that is written merely to please the author is worthless.
  • Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662)
 The descent into the depths always seems to precede the ascent.
  • Carl G. Jung, Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious (1934)
 Success is a state of mind. If you want success, start thinking of yourself as a success.
  • Dr. Joyce Brothers
 All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.
  • unknown
He who would do some great thing in this short life must apply himself to the work with such a concentration of his forces as, to idle spectators, who live only to amuse themselves, looks like insanity.
  • John Foster (1770 - 1843) _On Decision of Character_
 Too much sanity may be madness. And maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be!
  • Miguel de Cervantes (1547 - 1616)
 If you sincerely desire a truly well-rounded education, you must study the extremists, the obscure and "nutty". You need the balance! Your poor brain is already being impregnated with middle-of-the-road crap [...]
  • Rev. Ivan Stang _High Weirdness By Mail_ 1988
What garlic is to food, insanity is to art.
  • unknown
 I'm not anti-government, government's anti-me. I'm not anti-anything, I just wanna be free.
  • Rage Against the Machine (~lyrics)
 Words for me are tangible bodies, visible sirens, incarnate sensualities. Perhaps because real sensuality doesn't interest me in the least, not even intellectually or in my dreams, desire in me metamorphosed into my aptitude for creating verbal rhythms and for noting them in the speech of others. [...]
  • Fernando Pessoa (1888 - 1935) The Book of Disquiet

 

 

 

 

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