Stephen Fry Quotes - Page 3

Knowing what I now know I would never have done anything so fatuous; but then I never would have known what I know now had I not.

You can't just say there is a god because the world is beautiful. You have to account for bone cancer in children

It only takes a room of Americans for the English and Australians to realise how much we have in common.

Old Professors never die, they just lose their faculties.

Taste every fruit of every tree in the garden at least once. It is an insult to creation not to experience it fully. Temperance is wickedness.

It's extremely unlucky to be superstitious, for no other reason than it is always unlucky to be colossally stupid.

The most natural way you would attempt to cope with something inside you that is affecting your moods and your energy levels is to intervene with chemicals to help and because medical science hasn't come up with pharmaceuticals that do particularly well you tend to reach for the chemicals that are outside the Pharma counter, i.e. narcotics and alcohol because they can guarantee your mood more or less.

I think Eros should be dirty. In Greek legend, as I'm sure you are aware, he fell in love with the minor deity Psyche. It was the Greek way of saying that, in spite of what it may believe, Love pursues the Soul, not the body; the Erotic desires the Psychic. If Love was clean and wholesome he wouldn't lust after Psyche.

There comes a time when the blankness of the future is just so extreme, it's like such a black wall of nothingness. Not of bad things like a cave full of monsters and so, you're afraid of entering it. It's just nothingness, the void, emptiness and it is just horrible. It's like contemplating a future-less future and so you just want to step out of it. The monstrosity of being alive overwhelms you.

I have always been an impassioned advocate for the works of Shakespeare. I regard him as one of the most complete miracles of his or any other age.

My secret is that I have never thought there is a secret to anything in life. Passion. Love. Drive. Work. Work. Work. Dull but true.

It is a cliche that most cliches are true, but then like most cliches, that cliche is untrue.

I knew I couldn't believe in God, because I was fundamentally Hellenic in my outlook.

Compromise is a stalling between two fools.

I shouldn't be saying this, high treason really, but I sometimes wonder if Americans aren't fooled by our accent into detecting a brilliance that may not really be there.

Having a great intellect is no path to being happy.

Stupid people like to delude themselves that while they may not be clever, they were at least able to compensate with feelings and insights denied to the intellectual....It was precisely this kind of false belief that made stupid people so stupid. The truth was the clever people had infinitely more resources from which to make the leaps of connection that the world called intuition. What was 'intelligence' after all, but the ability to read into things?

Hell, I am young. I am free. My teeth are clean. The sun shines. To hell with everything else

I think faith in each other is much harder than faith in God...

People still don't get how astounding Darwinism is. People think what shocked everybody was that Charles Darwin seemed to be saying we had descended from apes.

If I were to believe in a god l would believe in gods. I think monotheism is the really ghastly thing. That is the absolutely staggering to me misapprehension.

Living with bipolar, schizophrenia or any other mental condition takes a recognition that one has a chronic condition that needs managing. The management can be through pharmaceutical intervention, talk therapy, mindfulness programmes, diet and exercise changes, all kinds of things.

How can I tell you what I think until I've heard what I'm going to say?

Those who rule the world get so little opportunity to run about and laugh and play in it.

The church has no power over our lives any more, which is something of a blessing for those who do not enjoy red-hot pokers or iron thumb-screws.