Some deemed him wondrous wise, and some believed him mad.

-Beattie,James
The Minstrel, bk.1, stanza16.

It is the same each time with progress. First they ignore you, then they say you are mad, then dangerous, then there's a pause, and then you can't find anyone who disagrees.

-Benn,Tony (Anthony Neil Wedgwood)
  Speech at the Labour Party Conference, Oct.

I said of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth,What doeth it?

-Bible (Old Testament)
Ecclesiastes 2:2.

Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad.

-Bible (NewTestament)
Acts of the  Apostles 26:24.

We loved, siröused to meet: How sad and bad and mad it wasö But then, how it was sweet!

-Browning, Robert
  Dramatis Personae,'Confessions', stanza 9.

All poets are mad.

-Burton, Robert pseudonym DemocritusJunior
Anatomy of Melancholy,'Democritus to the Reader'.

If you fear making anyone mad, then you ultimately probe for the lowest common denominator of human achievement.

-Carter,Jimmy (James Earl)
  Address to the Future Farmers of  America, Kansas City, 9 Nov.

Randolph and the Mahdi have occupied my thoughts about equally. The Mahdi pretends to be half mad, but is very sane in reality. Randolph occupies exactly the converse position.

-of Salisbury
  Of Lord Randolph Churchill. Letter to Lady John Manners, May.

For the great Gaels of Ireland Are the men that God made mad, For all their wars are merry, And all their songs are sad.

-Chesterton, G(ilbert) K(eith)
Ballad of the White Horse, bk.2.

Mad about the boy, It's pretty funny but I'm mad about the boy. He has a gayappeal That makes me feel There may be something sad about the boy.

-Coward, Sir Noe«  l Peirce
  'Mad  About the Boy' (song).

Filled with her love, may I be rather grown Mad with much heart than idiot with none.

-Donne,John
c.1595  Elegies, no.10,'The Bracelet'.

My heart's so full of joy, That I shall do some wild extravagance Of love in public; and the foolish world, Which knows not tenderness, will think me mad.

-Dryden,John
  All for Love, or The World Well Lost, act 2.

   There is a pleasure sure, In being mad, that none but madmen know!

-Dryden,John
The Spanish Friar, act1, sc.1.

Doeg, though without knowing how or why, Made still a blund'ring kind of melody; Spurred boldly on, and dashed through thick and thin, Through sense and nonsense, never out nor in; Free from all meaning, whether good or bad, And in one word, heroically mad.

-Dryden,John
Absalom and  Achitophel, pt.2, l.412^17.

   At first you may think I'm as mad as a hatter When I tell you a cat must have.

-Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)
THREE DIFFERENT NAMES1939  Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats,'The Naming of Cats'.

  Oh! he is mad is he? Then I hope he will bite some of my other generals.

-George II
c.1759  Replying to remarks made about General James Wolfe by the Duke of Newcastle. Quoted in HenryBeckles Wilson Life and Letters of  James Wolfe (1909), ch.17.

There's a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu, There's a little marble cross below the town, There'sa broken-heartedwomantendsthegrave of Mad Carew, And theYellow God forever gazes down.

-Hayes,J Milton
The Green Eye of theYellow God. US  Republican  statesman  and 19th  President  (1877^81).  Under his  presidency,  the  country  recovered  commercial  prosperity, and his  policy  included  the  reform  of  the  civil  service  and  the conciliation of the Southern states.

Mad from life's history, Glad to death's mystery, Swift to be hurledö Anywhere, anywhere, Out of the world!

-Honorius of Autun
  'The Bridge of Sighs'.

   I inherited a vile melancholy from my father, which has made me mad all my life, at least not sober.

-Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson
  Remark,16 Sep. Quoted in  James Boswell The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785).

'Tis true, I'm broke! Vows, oaths, and all I had Of credit lost. And I am now run mad, Or do upon my self some desperate ill; This sadness makes no approaches, but to kill.

-Jonson, Ben
The Underwood,'An Elegy', no.40 (published1640).