Sanity

Sanity denotes one's mind being in a healthy condition; not deranged; acting rationally.

One would think that with our technology we could eliminate most social ills. Couldn’t modern technology supply enough food, clothing, shelter, and material goods for all if used intelligently? What is stopping us from achieving this? Technology is racing forward but our societies are still based on concepts and methods devised centuries ago. We still have a society based on scarcity and the use of money... based on old structures used several thousand years ago. We are trying to adjust to the rapid advances in technology with obsolete values that no longer work in today’s world. ~ Jacque Fresco

Quotes

• Without laughter life on our planet would be intolerable. So important is laughter to us that humanity highly rewards members of one of the most unusual professions on earth, those who make a living by inducing laughter in others. This is very strange if you stop to think of it: that otherwise sane and responsible citizens should devote their professional energies to causing others to make sharp, explosive barking-like exhalations.
  • Steve Allen, Funny People (1981).

• The only people who have an official confirmation that they are sane are those who have been released from psychiatric hospitals.
  • Uri Avnery, Talking Zionism, 28 July 2012.

• Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage...
  • Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.

• Racism is not something that is designated as an illness that can be treated by mental health professionals.
  • Renee Binder, doctor and Chairwoman of the American Psychiatric Association's Council on Psychiatry and Law, as quoted in "They Hate. They Kill. Are They Insane?", Alvin F. Poussaint, The New York Times, (1999).

• It is the fully sane person who feels isolated in the insane society
  • Erich Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (1973)

• Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results
  • 1981 text from Narcotics Anonymous

• I believed all along, one day everyone would go mad just to see me sane.
  • Suman Pokhrel, Before Making Decision

• In the Puranas it was predicted that toward the end of Kali Yuga humanity would be driven to acts of madness. It is very dangerous that people do not recognize this state, for while it is possible to cure a patient who does not resist treatment, if he struggles against it the beneficial effects of the medicine will be diminished. But how do you explain to people that their leaders and their teachers are insane? ...such mental confusion fully corresponds with the end of Kali Yuga... Most people hate the messenger who brings knowledge... let them at least remember the warning that humanity is acting insanely. The Thinker warned, “Do not fall into madness.”
  • Helena Roerich, Supermundane, 285 (1938).

• Sanity is madness put to good uses; waking life is a dream controlled.
  • George Santayana, Interpretations of Poetry and Religion (1900).

• Humans are a dangerously insane and very sick species. That's not a judgment. It's a fact. It is also a fact that the sanity is there underneath the madness. Healing and redemption are available right now.
  • Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (1997) p.55

• To complain is always non-acceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.
  • Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (1997) p.56

• Most humans are still in the grip of the egoic mode of consciousness: identified with their mind and run by their mind. If they do not free themselves from their mind in time, they will be destroyed by it. They will experience increasing confusion, conflict, violence, illness, despair, madness. Egoic mind has become like a sinking ship. If you don't get off, you will go down with it. The collective egoic mind is the most dangerously insane and destructive entity ever to inhabit this planet.
  • Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (1997) p.67

• Until now, human intelligence, which is no more than a minute aspect of universal intelligence, has been distorted and misused by the ego. I call that “intelligence in the service of madness.” Splitting the atom requires great intelligence. Using that intelligence for building and stockpiling atom bombs is insane or at best extremely unintelligent. Stupidity is relatively harmless, but intelligent stupidity is highly dangerous. This intelligent stupidity, for which one could find countless obvious examples, is threatening our survival as a species.
  • Eckhart Tolle in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, (2005)

• I must confess that I lost faith in the sanity of the world.
  • H.G. Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau.

• Many of the smartest people and most creative talents are working for the brainwashers, using dazzling images, sex and violence to rob us of our sanity.
  • Matt Wuerker interview in Attitude) (2002), edited by Ted Rall

See also

• Insanity
• *Activism
• Awareness
• Compassion
• Corruption
• Ego
• Healing
• Human rights
• Hunger
• Meaning of life
• Now
• Politicians
• Positive thinking
• Self-realization
• Thought
• Tyranny