The Mask of Sanity Quotes

“The 16 characteristics of psychopaths:

1. Intelligent
2. Rational
3. Calm
4. Unreliable
5. Insincere
6. Without shame or remorse
7. Having poor judgment
8. Without capacity for love
9. Unemotional
10. Poor insight
11. Indifferent to the trust or kindness of others
12. Overreactive to alcohol
13. Suicidal
14. Impersonal sex life
15. Lacking long-term goals
16. Inadequately motivated antisocial behavior”
― Hervey M. Cleckley, The Mask of Sanity

“They also bring to mind what sometimes seems to be a rapt predilection of small but influential cults of intellectuals or esthetes for what is generally regarded as perverse dispirited or distastefully unintelligible. The award of a Nobel Prize in literature to Andre Gide who in his work fervently and openly insists that pederasty is the superior and preferable way of life for adolescent boys furnishes a memorable example of such judgments. Renowned critics and some professors in our best universities reverently acclaim as the superlative expression of genius James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake a 628page collection of erudite gibberish indistinguishable to most people from the familiar word salad produced by hebephrenic patients on the back wards of any state hospital.”
― Hervey M. Cleckley, The Mask of Sanity

“Much of the difficulty which mental institutions have in their relations with the psychopath springs from a lack of awareness in the public that he exists.”
― Hervey Cleckley, The Mask of Sanity: An Attempt To Clarify Some Issues About the So-Called Psychopathic Personality

“According to the opinion of those who know him he was not interested in the position itself, that is to say, in anything he might accomplish thereby, but only in the petty fame it might bring him. He enjoyed stepping into various roles in which he played the big shot.”
― Hervey M. Cleckley, The Mask of Sanity: An Attempt to Clarify Some Issues about the So-Called Psychopathic Personality

“Death from snakebite among these zealous worshippers does not apparently dampen their ardor.”
― Hervey M. Cleckley, The Mask of Sanity: An Attempt to Clarify Some Issues about the So-Called Psychopathic Personality

“our troubles arise not so much from ignorance as from knowing so much that is not”
― Hervey M. Cleckley, The Mask of Sanity

“What relations he has had of this sort, though not infrequent, seem very insignificant in the story of his life, involving little emotion, implying no sexual contact of two personalities beyond the more or less mechanical friction of the parts technically involved.”
― Hervey M. Cleckley, The Mask of Sanity: An Attempt to Clarify Some Issues about the So-Called Psychopathic Personality

“At the funeral the next day, having skillfully obtained more whiskey, Chester appeared at first poised and sober. Signs of drunkenness, however, soon appeared, and the patient proceeded to make a shocking and memorable impression. Vomiting and defecating while in the aisle of the church contributed to this effect.”
― Hervey M. Cleckley, The Mask of Sanity: An Attempt to Clarify Some Issues about the So-Called Psychopathic Personality

“It is difficult, however, for society to hold these people to account for their damaging conduct or to apply any control that will prevent its continuing. Those who commit serious crimes have a history that any clever lawyer can exploit in such a way as to make his client appear to the average jury the victim of such madness as would make Bedlam itself tame by comparison. Under such circumstances they escape the legal consequences of their acts, are sent to mental hospitals where they prove to be “sane,” and are released. On the other hand, when their relatives and their neighbors seek relief from them and take action to have “lunacy warrants” drawn against them, not wanting to be restricted, they are able to convince the courts that they are as competent as any man.”
― Hervey Cleckley, The Mask of Sanity: An Attempt To Clarify Some Issues About the So-Called Psychopathic Personality

“The headlines emphasize, however, what sometimes seems to be a rapt predilection of small but influential cults of intellectuals or esthetes for what is generally regarded as perverse, dispirited, or distastefully unintelligible.”
― Hervey Cleckley, The Mask of Sanity: An Attempt To Clarify Some Issues About the So-Called Psychopathic Personality

“The ease with which defective heredity may be found in any case in which one looks for it is well known. A study published in 1937 revealed that fifty-seven per cent of a group of normal people showed a positive family history of “neuropathic taint.” {36}”
― Hervey M. Cleckley, The Mask of Sanity: An Attempt To Clarify Some Issues About the So-Called Psychopathic Personality