INSANITY INSTINCT
Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiffi fuit.
There has never been any great genius without a spice of madness.
Quid est dementius quain bilem in homines
collectam in res effundere.
What is more insane than to vent on senseless things the anger that is felt towards men?
Seneca—De Ira. II. 26.
Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
That he is mad, 'tis true, 'tis true 'tis pity;
And pity 'tis 'tis true.
Hamlet. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 96.
Though this be madness, yet there is method
in't.
Hamlet. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 208.
s It shall be so:
Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.
Hamlet. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 196.
I am not mad; I would to heaven I were!
For then, 'tis like I should forget myself.
King John. Act III. Sc. 4. L. 48.
We are not ourselves
When nature, being oppress'd, commands the
mind
To suffer with the body.
King Lear. Act II. Sc. 4. L. 109.
Were such things here as we do speak about?
Or have we eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner?
Macbeth. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 83.
You will never run mad, niece;
No, not till a hot January.
Much Ado About Nothing. Act I. Sc. 1. L.
Fetter strong madness in a silken thread.
Much Ado About Nothing. Act V. Sc. 1.
L. 25.
Quern Jupiter vult perdere, dementat primus.
Whom Jupiter would destroy he first drives mad.
Sophocles—Antigone. Johnson's ed. (1758)
L. 632. Sophocles quotes it as a saying.
The passage in Antigone is explained by
Tricinius as "The gods lead to error him
whom they intend to make miserable."
Quoted by Athenagokas in Legat. P. 106.
Oxpn Ed. Found in a fragment of
iEscHYLus preserved by Plutarch—De
Audiend. Poet. P. 63. Oxon ed. See
also Constanttnus Manasses. Fragments.
Bk. VIII. L. 40. Ed. by Boissonade.
(1819) Duport's Gnomologia Homerica.
P. 282. (1660) Oraoula Sibylliana.' Bk.
VIII. L. 14. Leutsch and Schneidewin
—Corpus Paroemiographorum Grcecorum
VoJ. f. P. 444. Sextus Emphucus is
given as the first writer to present the whole
of the adage as cited by Plutarch. ("Concerning such whom God is slow to punish.
