Megalomania Quotes

“Who are you?" he asked.
I am the future queen of this world, at the very least. You may refer to me as Mistress Koboi for the next five minutes. After that you may refer to me as Aaaaarrrrgh, hold your throat, die screaming, and so on.”
― Eoin Colfer, The Time Paradox

“Cheops' Law: Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

“In the days when hyenas of hate suckle the babes of men, and jackals of hypocrisy pimp their mothers’ broken hearts, may children not look to demons of ignorance for hope.”
― Aberjhani, The River of Winged Dreams

“Funny, isn’t it? We blame politicians for being megalomaniacs. But secretly we all are. It’s just that most of us don’t get the opportunity or are in a position to exploit others.”
― Abhaidev, The World's Most Frustrated Man

“Man cannot be content in his riches even if he has the whole world, there must be a frivolous extra desire.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, The Power of Creative Thoughts

“I can see why people find him [Hugo Chávez] charming. He's very ebullient, as they say. I've heard him make a speech, though, and he has a vice that's always very well worth noticing because it's always a bad sign: he doesn't know when to sit down. He's worse than Castro was. He won't shut up. Then he told me that he didn't think the United States landed on the moon and didn't believe in the existence of Osama bin Laden. He thought all of this was all a put-up job. He's a wacko.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“If you're completely off your rocker and have delusions of grandeur in which your personal existence is of special significance to the rest of the world, all hope is not lost. Mix in enough charisma and you have what it takes to start a religion... or become a serial killer.”
― Edward M. Wolfe

“Indeed if one had just seen him at the end of the evening with the dusk and the mist of the fenlands close behind him he might have believed that in the dusk and the mist was an army that followed this gay worn confident man.
Had the army been there Niv was sane.
Had the world accepted that an army was there, still he was sane.
But the lonely fancy that had not fact to feed on, nor the fancy of any other for fellowship, was for its loneliness mad.”
― Lord Dunsany, The King of Elfland's Daughter

“The Bear had once confided to me that Durrell's ego could fit snugly in the basilica of St. Peter's in Rome but in very few other public places. This runaway megalomania marked him as a blood member of the fraternity of generals. If looks alone could make generals, Durrell would have been a cinch. He was built lean and slim and dark, like a Doberman. A man of breeding and refrigerated intelligence, he ordered his life like a table of logarithms.”
― Pat Conroy, The Lords of Discipline

“He feels that most high-placed Nazis are refusing to face facts vis-à-vis their economic plight. By doing so, they accelerate the tendency toward greater tour de force adventures, less predictability, less stability in general. The cycle of manic enthusiasm, then fear, then Partei solutions of a desperate type—well, the point he got across was that all this tends to bring the most irresponsible and reckless aspirants to the top.”

Mr. Tagomi nodded.

“So we must presume that the worst, rather than the best, choice will be made. The sober and responsible elements will be defeated in the present clash.”
― Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle

“It would not do to be Lord of a universe inhabited solely by serfs.”
― Wayne Gerard Trotman, Veterans of the Psychic Wars

“The author describes megalomania as seen in Chairman Mao by saying that what he was familiar with, he was really familiar with. This zeal moved the megalomaniac with a complete lack of appreciation for what he DID NOT know.”
― David Halberstam, The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War

“He did have his beliefs, chiefly in his own genius.”
― T.J. Stiles, The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt

“Denying realism amounts to megalomania.”
― Karl Popper

“You know' he said, 'I think I would rather be a man than a god. We don't need anyone to believe in us. We just keep going anyhow. It's what we do.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“There exists no greater megalomania than thinking that we are all alone in this cosmic ocean!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“motives for greed and selfishness are often attributed to toil and source of riches.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

“However, ana al-haqq as it stands has raised a few literary questions as well and, within the tradition of mystic poetry, the attitude preserved in Hallaj's expression has given rise to mixed reactions regarding its content. It is held that it is an exaggeration of subjective experience, and ana—the personal "I"—shows leanings toward megalomania and egotism. It is the personal "I" which overshadows al-haqq, and thereby invites total attention to itself. In fact, the personal "I" absorbs al-haqq, and reaches out to the romantic cult of the egostistical sublime. In this context, the truth tends to become subjective and, therefore, relative, and in its social implications it shows the possibility of numerous diversions. Extreme individualism, in contrast to institutionalism, is also held to be related to ana al-haqq. The personal "I" is supposed to be potentionally explosive and destructive for values of the Establishment. A.J. Arberry has summed up the position by saying that Hallaj had dared to declare that his direct awareness of God was for him a clearer proof than both revelation and reason.”
― Gilani Kamran, Ana Al-Haqq Reconsidered

“Là où il y a pouvoir, il y a résistance.”
― Michel Foucault

“When dealing with writers it breaks down like this: a regular writer is your average everyday megalomaniac. Like every artist, there's a part of them that believes--nay, knows--the world turns for them. Most are harmless. Some are obnoxious. Some are Bret Easton Ellis.”
― Hannah Strom-Martin

“M's plan would put Blake right up there in the history books with Alexander, with Charlemagne, with Napoleon. One of the most powerful men ever to have lived. Viceroy of the Americas.”
― Lisa Marie Rice, Midnight Secrets

“Megalomaniacs like Alistair Drummond have become emperors and führers, served by underlings who never questioned their most irrational orders.”
― Julian May, Orion Arm

“Is that a serious question? I’m God! I know things.”

“Sure. Sure,” Freud flipped to the front page of his notebook. At the top of the page scribbled the word megalomaniac, “Please, go on.”
― Dylan Callens, Operation Cosmic Teapot

“But what I learned from the Widow's Hand is that whose who would be gods fear no one so much as other potential deities”
― Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children

“In reality, our needs are very few. Our basic needs of food, water, clothing and shelter can be fulfilled by only a small amount of money. However, there is no limit to our greed and megalomania.”
― Awdhesh Singh, 31 Ways to Happiness

“A dandy," wrote Charles Baudelaire, "must be looking in his mirror at all times, waking and sleeping." Dali could easily have become the living proof of Baudelaire's dictum. But the literal mirror was not enough for him. Dali needed mirrors of many kinds: his pictures, his admirers, newspapers and magazines and television. And even that still left him unsatisfied.

So one Christmas he took a walk in the streets of New York carrying a bell. He would ring it whenever he felt people were not paying enough attention to him. "The thought of not being recognised was unbearable." True to himself to the bitter end, he delighted in following Catalonian television's bulletins on his state of health during his last days alive (in Quiron hospital in Barcelona); he wanted to hear people talking about him, and he also wanted to know whether his health would revive or whether he would be dying soon. At the age of six he wanted to be a female cook - he specified the gender. At seven he wanted to be Napoleon. "Ever since, my ambition has been continually on the increase, as has my megalomania: now all I want to be is Salvador Dali. But the closer I get to my goal, the further Salvador Dali drifts away from me."

He painted his first picture in 1910 at the age of six. At ten he discovered Impressionist art, and at fourteen the Pompiers (a 19th century group of academic genre painters, among them Meissonier, Detaille and Moreau). By 1927 he was Dali, and the poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca, a friend of his youth, wrote an 'Ode to Salvador Dali.' Years later Dali claimed that Lorca had been very attracted to him and had tride to sodomize him, but had not quite managed it. Dali's thirst for scandal was unquenchable. His parents had named him Salvador "because he was the chosen one who was come to save painting from the" deadly menace of abstract art, academic Surrealism, Dadaism, and any kind of anarchic "ism" whatsoever."

If he had lived during the Renaissance, his genius would have been recognized at an earlier stage and indeed considered normal. But in the twentieth century, which Dali damned as stupid, he was thought provocative, a thorn in the flesh. To this day there are many who misunderstand the provocativeness and label him insane. But Dali repeatedly declared: "... the sole difference between me and a madman is the fact that I am not mad!" Dali also said: "The difference between the Surrealists and me is that I am a Surrealist" - which is perfectly true. And he also claimed: "I have the universal curiosity of Renaissance men, and my mental jaws are constantly at work.”
― Gilles Néret, Salvador Dalí: 1904-1989

“The lust and the hunger? The thirst for power? And thus it is brewed, clearly, the heart's deadliest poison to integrity.”
― Criss Jami

“Megalomania is a common reaction to extensive LSD use, for once you are aware that your reality was created by yourself for your own benefit, it is hard to avoid getting a God complex.”
― John Higgs, I Have America Surrounded: A Biography of Timothy Leary