To feel our character, our personality, and our personal, hard-won history fade from being is to be exposed to whatever lies beneath these comforting, operational conveniences. What remains when the conscious and functioning self has been erased is mankind's fundamental condition _ irrational, violent, guilt-wracked, despairing, and mad.
Quote Detail
The difference between a drunkard and a madman is 10%.
Quick Answer
What this quote page tells you
This canonical quote page keeps the full saying, the attributed author, any linked work, and the topic tags together so the quote can be cited from one stable URL.
Related Quotes
More quote cards from the same area
(there is) no other means of escaping from one's consciousness than to deny it, to look upon it as an organic disease of the terrestrial intelligence - a disease which we must endeavor to cure by an action which must appear to us an action of violent and willful madness, but which, on the other side of our appearances, is probably an action of health. ("Of Immortality")
It's not evil, Rand. I know something evil when I smell it. This isn't evil, it's just incredibly stupid.
To be wicked is never excusable, but there is some merit in knowing that you are; the most irreparable of vices is to do evil from stupidity.
My rage is derived from eyes so sharp they see through the idiocy being passed off as sophistication. Under the cloak of universal themes and terms such as freedom, change, and acceptance, madness ensues, being readily welcomed by those whose mind's eye questions nothing.
If evil lingers around you, it will rub off on you, it will cause stress, anxiety and a lot of mental anguish! __yes_ - you can see evil in the eye of the beholder! Body! Talk! Stance! Walk! Posture! Evil oozes out!