A man speaking sense to himself is no madder than a man speaking nonsense not to himself.
Interpretation
Talking to oneself can be rational, whereas even nonsensical thoughts can be considered sane if they are not vocalized.
This quote by Tom Stoppard suggests that self-reflection and inner dialogue are not signs of madness, unlike societal perceptions might imply. In fact, it highlights the idea that speaking rationally to oneself is no more crazy than holding nonsensical thoughts without expressing them. It challenges the notion of sanity and asks us to consider the nature of our thoughts and how we communicate with ourselves.
In practice
In a motivational speech about mental wellness, you could use this quote to encourage self-reflection.
Love is - OK, it's 20 things, but it isn't 19. And I think that love reaches for something which is very, very deep in us and is very easily obscured, and is also very easily denied, which is the instinct towards the other person, other than toward the self.
A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar - you pretend it's not there.
I once did a radio program with a famous materialist, that is to say a scientist who believed that absolutely everything was physical and that all emotions were reductive to little electrical impulses in your neurons. And I found that I didn't believe that. But what the emotions really are, I don't have an alternative theory.
One of the reasons why there are so many versions of Chekhov is that translations date in a way that the original doesn't; translations seem to be of their time.
A Chinaman of the T'ang Dynasty—and, by which definition, a philosopher—dreamed he was a butterfly, and from that moment he was never quite sure that he was not a butterfly dreaming it was a Chinese philosopher. Envy him; in his two-fold security.
Chekhov directors and Chekhov actors love working on his plays because there seems to be no end to what you can find out about the micro-narrative when you're investigating a text.
The visible is always a mirror of the invisible. The reality is imagined before it manifests itself.
The kingdom of heaven is within us. The Jewish idea was a kingdom of heaven upon this earth. That was not the idea of Jesus.
The man whose whole activity is diverted to inner meditation becomes insensible to all his surroundings. His passions are mere appearances, being sterile. They are dissipated in futile imaginings, producing nothing external to themselves.
A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which.
The bustle in a house The morning after death Is solemnest of industries Enacted upon earth,-- The sweeping up the heart, And putting love away We shall not want to use again Until eternity
I'm homosexual. How and why are idle questions. It's a little like wanting to know why my eyes are green.
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