Stephen Fry Quotes That Will Inspire You to Live Your Best Life

1. An original idea. That can't be too hard. The library must be full of them.

2. But an Adrian also knew that an Adrian's lies were real: they were lived and felt and acted out as thoroughly as another man's truths - if other men had truths - and he believed it possible that this last lie might see him through to the grave. The Liar

3. Certainly the most destructive vice if you like, that a person can have. More than pride, which is supposedly the number one of the cardinal sins - is self pity. Self pity is the worst possible emotion anyone can have. And the most destructive. It is, to slightly paraphrase what Wilde said about hatred, and I think actually hatred's a subset of self pity and not the other way around - ' It destroys everything around it, except itself '. Self pity will destroy relationships, it'll destroy anything that's good, it will fulfill all the prophecies it makes and leave only itself. And it's so simple to imagine that one is hard done by, and that things are unfair, and that one is underappreciated, and that if only one had had a chance at this, only one had had a chance at that, things would have gone better, you would be happier if only this, that one is unlucky. All those things. And some of them may well even be true. But, to pity oneself as a result of them is to do oneself an enormous disservice.I think it's one of things we find unattractive about the american culture, a culture which I find mostly, extremely attractive, and I like americans and I love being in america. But, just occasionally there will be some example of the absolutely ravening self pity that they are capable of, and you see it in their talk shows. It's an appalling spectacle, and it's so self destructive. I almost once wanted to publish a self help book saying 'How To Be Happy by : Guaranteed success'. And people buy this huge book and it's all blank pages, and the first page would just say - ' Stop Feeling Sorry For Yourself - And you will be happy '. Use the rest of the book to write down your interesting thoughts and drawings, and that's what the book would be, and it would be true. And it sounds like 'Oh that's so simple', because it's not simple to stop feeling sorry for yourself, it's bloody hard. Because we do feel sorry for ourselves, it's what Genesis is all about.

4. Compromise is a stalling between two fools.

5. Gaia visited her daughter Mnemosyne, who was busy being unpronounceable. Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold

6. Having a great intellect is no path to being happy.

7. I am a lover of truth, a worshiper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance.

8. It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what."[I saw hate in a graveyard -- , The Guardian, 5 June 2005]

9. My first words, as I was being born [...] I looked up at my mother and said, 'that's the last time I'm going up one of those.

10. No adolescent ever wants to be understood, which is why they complain about being misunderstood all the time. Moab Is My Washpot

11. People who can change and change again are so much more reliable and happier than those who can’t Moab Is My Washpot

12. The alarm in the morning? Well, I have an old tape of Carlo Maria Giulini conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in a perfectly transcendent version in Shubert's seventh symphony. And I've rigged it up so that at exactly 7:30 every morning it falls from the ceiling onto my face.

13. There were people who believed their opportunities to live a fulfilled life were hampered by the number of Asians in England, by the existance of a royal family, by the volume of traffic that passed by their house, by the malice of trade unions, by the power of callous employers, by the refusal of the health service to take their condition seriously, by communism, by capitalism, by atheism, by anything, in fact, but their own futile, weak-minded failure to get a fucking grip. Revenge

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

15. Bij onze geboorte ligt ons lot al vast, en niemand heeft ooit het zijne kunnen ontlopen (Hektor) Troy

16. I'm fat because I'm greedy, and if my mind is fat it's because I'm curious.

17. It's not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing—they are not all bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me. Moab Is My Washpot

18. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and you will be happy.