Here I am, with my book and my pencil—the latter not pointed so well as I could wish, but when Christians take leave of their senses, who is to expect that pencils will keep their points?.
1880, Henry Adams, chapter 10, in Democracy: An American Novel:
She plainly said that men seemed to take leave of their senses as soon as women were concerned.
Sue Shellenbarger was 49, living in Oregon and writing her "Work & Family" column for the Wall Street Journal, when in the space of two years she got divorced, lost her father, drained her bank account and developed a taste for wilderness camping and ATV riding that left her crumpled up on an emergency-room gurney. "People around me thought I'd taken leave of my senses," she says.
One of the great difficulties associated with the adoption of organic or, perhaps more appropriately, sustainable principles at the time I started turned out to be convincing others that you had not taken complete leave of your senses.