Musings on Madness

“Madness, provided it comes as the gift of heaven, is the channel by which we received the greatest blessing. …the men of old who gave things their names saw no disgrace or reproach in madness; otherwise they would not have connected with it the name of the noblest of all arts, the art of discerning the future, and called it the manic art… So, according to the evidence provided by our ancestors, madness is a nobler thing than sober sense… madness comes from God, where as sober sense is merely human.” – Socrates – Phaedrus and Letters VII and VIII by Plato, translated by Walter Hamilton