"If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything."

It's usually either chaos or order. Religion, philosophy, math, science. Though many often intersect.

Madness is generally incoherent whereas eccentricity is a mere.. trait. Someone who blends in and is satisfied with the pleasures of this world or the state of a society often doesn't spend their time figuring things out.

Issac Newton is known to be a person you wouldn't want to be friends with, yet brilliant. Do you see the connection? — Wheatley

John von Neumann was a famously social genius, as was Richard Feynman. Einstein, for all his eccentricities, was social. In the case of Feynman and Einstein, a little TOO social if you know what I mean. Besides, I'd have loved to have been friends with Newton.

I'm more surprised by what seems to be collective madness than by individual madness. The single individual maybe forgiven for his insanity; after all, genes, upbringing, experiences, are thought to have a bearing on a person's mental condition.

Compare that to the collective - humanity as a whole: mutually inconsistent religions, worldviews, and what subsequently follows from them - opposing behavior and attitudes. If an alien were to observe the beliefs of humanity as a whole, it would be hard pressed not to conclude that what it's looking at is an insane lifeform.

That said, we have to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt given the inherent uncertainties the plague our combined knowledge and wisdom, which perhaps spawn these mutually incompatible beliefs and attitudes.

The first idea that came to mind was the Joker quote: Madness is like gravity, all it takes is a little push.

Maybe the issue you’re having is the differentiation between a madman and a genius, as the people you’ve quoted I’ll consider are the later.

But yes I agree that penning this concepts down do help as its somewhat like taking a mental dump, so with all this knowledge and ideas boiled up inside their head, not denying it will drive them mad if kept inside for too long. Hence I agree with you that concepts keeps us sane.

It is all about taming the monster within each of us.