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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.
-Stephen Fry
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I Have Always Been

Stephen Fry
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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.

Understanding the Quote: "i have always been an impassioned advocate for the works of shakespeare...."

This quote by Stephen Fry reflects deeply on the theme of miracle. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Miracle, Age, Regard, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Stephen Fry interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry is celebrated for insightful thoughts on miracle and age. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Miracle
Age
Regard
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Faces
Looks
And Then I Saw Him And Nothing Was Ever The Same Again. The Sky Was Never The Same Colour, The Moon Never The Same Shape: The Air Never Smelt The Same, Food Never Tasted The Same. Every Word I Knew Changed Its Meaning, Everything That Once Was Stable And Firm Became As Insubstantial As A Puff Of Wind, And Every Puff Of Wind Became A Solid Thing I Could Feel And Touch.
Moon
Air
Wind
I Have Van Gogh's Ear For Music
Ears
Vans
It Is Possible To Be A Fan Of Reality Tv, Talent Shows And Bubblegum Pop And Still Have A Brain. You Will Also See That A Great Many People Know Perfectly Well How Silly And Camp And Trivial Their Fandom Is. They Do Not Check In Their Minds When They Enter A Fan Site. Judgement Is Not Necessarily Fled To Brutish Beasts, And Men Have Not Quite Lost Their Reason. Which Is All A Way Of Questioning Whether Pop-culture Hero Worship Is Really So Psychically Damaging, So Erosive Of Cognitive Faculties, So Corrupting Of The Soul Of Mankind As We Are So Often Told.
Silly
Hero
Reality
A Month's Salary, Deep Regret, The Telephone Number Of Some Foul Rehab Clinic And My Lance Was Free.
Regret
Numbers
Salary
There Is So Much We Can Learn From Tv. It's A Window On The World.
World
Tvs
Window
Moving From Chair To Chair, From Coffee Machine To Coffee Machine Is The Limit Of My Action In Most Films. But I Enjoy Being Cast In Them Because I Love Watching Them.
Coffee
Moving
Machines
Hey-ho, It's Raining Inside: It Isn't My Fault And There's Nothing I Can Do About It, But Sit It Out. But The Sun May Well Come Out Tomorrow And When It Does, I Shall Take Full Advantage.
Rain
Doe
Hey
As If A Device Can Function If It Has No Style. As If A Device Can Be Called Stylish That Does Not Function Superbly... Yes, Beauty Matters. Boy, Does It Matter. It Is Not Surface, It Is Not An Extra, It Is The Thing Itself.
Boys
Style
Does It Matter
I Was Happy There. Which Is To Say I Was Not Unhappy There. Unhappiness And Happiness I Have Always Been Able To Carry About With Me, Irrespective Of Place And People, Because I Have Never Joined In.
People
Unhappy
Able
All The Cold-reading Clairvoyants And The Nonsensical Astrologers And Absurd Esp Merchants And Other Such People Who Talk About Vibrations And Energies.... God, If There's A Word That Drives Me Mad It's "energy" Used In A Nonsensical Way-don't Get Me Started!
Reading
People
Mad
Part Of Life Is Learning What To Be Ashamed Of And What To Be Proud Of.
Proud
Life Is
Ashamed
Perhaps The Greatest Definition I Think Of Character And Quality Is People Who When They're Truly Great Rather Than Making You Feel That Tall They Make You Feel That Tall, That They're Greatness As It Were Improves You.
Character
Greatness
Thinking
There Can't Be That Many Individual Souls. Not Souls Like Mine. There Isn't Room. There Can't Be.
Soul
Rooms
Individual
How Dare You? How Dare You Create A World In Which There Is Such Misery That Is Not Our Fault? It's Not Right, It's Utterly, Utterly Evil. Why Should I Respect A Capricious, Mean-minded, Stupid God Who Creates A World That Is So Full Of Injustice And Pain?
Pain
Stupid
Mean
It Is The Useless Things That Make Life Worth Living And That Make Life Dangerous Too: Wine, Love, Art, Beauty. Without Them Life Is Safe, But Not Worth Bothering With.
Art
Wine
Useless Things
I Do Like Being Surprised By Directors And Producers And Being Offered Parts I Would Never Have Considered, Including Parts That Aren't Necessarily Obvious But Which Would Test Me.
Directors
Tests
Obvious
[...] I Suppose This Was The First Time I Had Ever Felt An Urge Not To Be. Never An Urge To Die, Far Less An Urge To Put An End To Myself - Simply An Urge Not To Be. This Disgusting, Hostile And Unlovely World Was Not Made For Me, Nor I For It. It Was Alien To Me And I To It.
World
Firsts
Aliens
One Of The Most Unattractive Human Traits, And So Easy To Fall Into, Is Resentment At The Sudden Shared Popularity Of A Previously Private Pleasure. Which Of Us Hasn't Been Annoyed When A Band, Writer, Artist Or Television Series That Had Been A Minority Interest Of Ours Has Suddenly Achieved Mainstream Popularity? When It Was At A Cult Level We Moaned At The Philistinism Of A World That Didn't Appreciate It, And Now That They Do Appreciate It We're All Resentful And Dog-in-the-manger About It.
Dog
Fall
Artist
When You Get Just A Complete Sense Of Blackness Or Void Ahead Of You, That Somehow The Future Looks An Impossible Place To Be, And The Direction You Are Going Seems To Have No Purpose, There Is This Word Despair Which Is A Very Awful Thing To Feel.
House
Despair
Looks
There Is Something In The American Project, Something In Simple American Oratory, Something In The Hope And Idealism Of This Frustrating And Contradictory Nation That Still Makes My Spirits Soar And My Heart Leap With Optimism And Belief. If Only They Understood How To Make A Cup Of Tea.
Heart
Simple
Optimism
The Stranger Might Laugh And Seem To Enjoy The Writing, But You Hug To Yourself The Thought That They Didn't Quite Understand Its Force And Quality The Way You Do - Just As Your Friends (thank Heavens) Don't Also Fall In Love With The Person You Are Going On And On About To Them.
Falling In Love
Writing
Laughing
As I Go Clowning My Sentimental Way Into Eternity, Wrestling With All My Problems Of Estrangement And Communion, Sincerity And Simulation, Ambition And Acquiescence, I Shuttle Between Worrying Whether I Matter At All And Whether Anything Else Matters But Me.
Ambition
Wrestling
Worry
Hell, I Am Young. I Am Free. My Teeth Are Clean. The Sun Shines. To Hell With Everything Else
Life
Shining
Teeth
I May Have Looked Happy But Inside I Was Hopelessly Depressed.
Depression
May
Mental Illness
Seriousness Is No More A Guarantee Of Truth, Insight, Authenticity Or Probity, Than Humour Is A Guarantee Of Superficiality And Stupidity.
Stupidity
Guarantees
Authenticity
Cheat? Good Heavens, This Is An Amateur Cricket Match Amongst Leading Prep Schools, I'm An Englishman And A Schoolmaster Supposedly Setting An Example To His Young Charges. We Are Playing The Most Artistic And Beautiful Game Ever Devised. Of Course I'll Cunting Well Cheat. Now, Give Me My Robe And Put On My Crown. I Have Immortal Longings In Me.
Beautiful
School
Games
There Is No Right Language Or Wrong Language Any More Than There Are Right Or Wrong Clothes.
Clothes
Language
I Can Understand The Greek Idea That There Are These These Principles Of Lightening Or Of War Or Of Wisdom And To Embody Them, To Personify Them Into A Athena Or Aries Or Whichever God You Want Makes Enormous Sense.
War
Ideas
Greek
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.
Believe
Dirty
Thinking
Not One Word Of The Following Is True
Following
One Word
I Like To Wake Up Each Morning And Not Know What I Think, That I May Reinvent Myself In Some Way.
Morning
Thinking
Wake Up
Atheism Is Not Just About Not Believing There Is A God, But On The Assumption That There Is One, What Kind Of God Is He?
Believe
Atheism
Assumption
If There Were A God He Would Want Us To Be Better Spirited Than To Take His Word For Everything.
Want
Spirited
Want U
I Do Believe That Almost Everything I Do Is Based On My Feelings, Not On My Intellect. Though But We Won't Chase Ourselves Up The Particular Sentiment, Or We'll Get Lost.
Believe
Feelings
Lost
There's No Doubt That I Do Have Extremes Of Mood That Are Greater Than Just About Anybody Else I Know.
Doubt
Mood
Extremes
All The Big Words -virtue, Justice, Truth, ...- Are Dwarfed By The Greatness Of Kindness
Kindness
Greatness
Justice
I Don't Watch Television, I Think It Destroys The Art Of Talking About Oneself.
Art
Thinking
Talking
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.'
Thinking
Self
Hatred
We Always Make The Mistake, The Fatal Mistake In The Case Of Military People, Of Imagining That Each War Will Be A Kind Of Version Of The One That Happened Previously.
Military
War
Mistake
You'll Often Hear The Phrase "science Doesn't Know Everything." Well, Of Course It Doesn't Know Everything. But Just Because Science Doesn't Know Everything Doesn't Mean That It Knows Nothing.
Mean
Phrases
Wells
Nowadays A Lot Of What Was Wrong With Me Would No Doubt Be Ascribed To Attention Deficit Disorder, Tartrazine Food Colouring, Dairy Produce And Air Pollution. A Few Hundred Years Earlier It Would Have Been Demons, Still The Best Analogy I Think, But Not Much Help When It Comes To A Cure.
Thinking
Air
Years
When Steampunk Meets Adventure And Adventure Meets Comedy And Comedy Meets Ingenuity And Ingenuity Meets Charm And Charm Meets Wonder And Wonder Meets Pleasure The Result Is A Triumph. Dr Grordbort Is The Future. And The Past. Which Makes An Ideal Present.
Adventure
Past
Triumph
There Is Not Any Way That You Can Just Choose The Nice Bits And Say That Means There Is A God And Ignore The True Fact Of What Nature Is.
Nice
Mean
Way
I'd Probably Want To Teach At University, Because Children Would Drive Me Insane. I Suspect It Would Be English Literature, Shakespeare And So Forth. I've Always Been Deeply, Deeply In Love With That Kind Of Thing.
Children
Insane
Would Be
How To Seperate The Humiliation From The Loss, That's The Catch. You Can Never Be Sure If What Tortures You Is The Pain Of Being Without Someone You Love Or The Embarrassment Of Admitting That You Have Been Rejected.
Pain
Loss
Admitting
You Either Get Norfolk, With Its Wild Roughness And Uncultivated Oddities, Or You Don't. It's Not All Soft And Lovely. It Doesn't Ask To Be Loved.
Oddities
Lovely
Norfolk
If A Thing Can Be Said In Ten Words, I May Be Relied Upon To Take A Hundred To Say It. I Ought To Apologize For That. I Ought To Prune, Pare And Extirpate Excess Growth, But I Will Not. I Like Words—strike That, I Love Words—and While I Am Fond Of The Condensed And Economical Use Of Them In Poetry, In Song Lyrics, In Twitter, In Good Journalism And Smart Advertising, I Love The Luxuriant Profusion And Mad Scatter Of Them Too.
Song
Smart
Mad
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.
Real
Lying
Men
I Have A Dark And Dreadful Secret. I Write Poetry... I Believe Poetry Is A Primal Impulse Within All Of Us. I Believe We Are All Capable Of It And Furthermore That A Small, Often Ignored Corner Of Us Positively Yearns To Try It.
Believe
Writing
Dark
At Least 260 Species Of Animal Have Been Noted Exhibiting Homosexual Behavior But Only One Species Of Animal Ever, So Far As We Know, Has Exhibited Homophobic Behavior - And That's The Human Being.
Gay
Animal
Behavior
Things Are Always Worse In The Steady Watches Of The Night.
Night
Watches
Steady
Choking With Dry Tears And Raging, Raging, Raging At The Absolute Indifference Of Nature And The World To The Death Of Love, The Death Of Hope And The Death Of Beauty, I Remember Sitting On The End Of My Bed, Collecting These Pills And Capsules Together And Wondering Why, Why When I Felt I Had So Much To Offer, So Much Love, Such Outpourings Of Love And Energy To Spend On The World, I Was Incapable Of Being Offered Love, Giving It Or Summoning The Energy With Which I Knew I Could Transform Myself And Everything Around Me.
Depression
Giving
Tears
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.
Miracle
Age
Regard
If You Have Been, I'm Glad You've Stopped.
Glad
Has Beens
Ifs
Having Been An Actor And A Writer For So Long - 20 Years Or So - I Felt That It Would Be Daft To Go To One's Grave Without Having Directed. It's A Natural Extension Of Writing And Acting, And So I Knew It Would Happen One Day.
Writing
Years
Long
The Concept That Really Gets The Goat Of The Gay-hater, The Idea That Really Spins Their Melon And Sickens Their Stomachs Is That Most Terrible And Terrifying Of All Human Notions, Love. That One Can Love Another Of The Same Gender, That Is What The Homophobe Really Cannot Stand. Love In All Eight Tones And All Five Semitones Of The World's Full Octave. Love As Agape, Eros And Philos; Love As Infatuation, Obsession And Lust; Love As Torture, Euphoria, Ecstasy And Oblivion (this Is Beginning To Read Like A Calvin Klein Perfume Catalogue); Love As Need, Passion And Desire.
Passion
Gay
Eight
If There Is A Sort Of National American Emotion I Would Call It Optimism. If There Is An English One I Would Call It Embarrassment - Not Even Pessimism - Just Sheer Shame, Embarrassment And Confusion.
Optimism
Confusion
Emotion
To Be Human And To Be Adult Means Constantly To Be In The Grip Of Opposing Emotions, To Have Daily To Reconcile Apparently Conflicting Tensions. I Want This, But Need That. I Cherish This, But I Adore Its Opposite Too.
Mean
Opposites
Adults
I Said It Before And I’ll Say It Again: Books Are Dead, Plays Are Dead, Poems Are Dead: There’s Only Movies. Music Is Still Okay, Because Music Is Sound Track. Ten, Fifteen Years Ago, Every Arts Student Wanted To Be A Novelist Or A Playwright. I’d Be Amazed If You Could Find A Single One Now With Such A Dead-end Ambition. They All Want To Make Movies. Not Write Movies. You Don’t Write Movies. You Make Movies.
Art
Book
Writing
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.
Alcohol
Energy
Guarantees
You Don't Need A Harvard Mba To Know That The Bedroom And The Boardroom Are Just Two Sides Of The Same Ballgame.
Business
Work
Mba
Cynical Is The Name We Give Those We Fear May Be Laughing At Us.
Names
Giving
Laughing
I Met Too Frankly Preposterous, If It Weren't For Their Banal Evil, Politicians And Pastors Who Told Knowing Lies About The Evils Of Homosexuality In Order To Attract Bigger Flocks To Their Churches And More Votes And Power To Their Corrupt Councils. Lgbt People Seem To Be Being Scapegoated More And More Just As At The Same Time In More Enlightened Countries More And More Freedom To Express Themselves, Marry, Be Given Official Intersex Status And So On Is Offered.
Country
Lying
Order
It May Be That There Is An Afterlife And I'll Look Incredibly Stupid, But At Least I Will Have Had A Crammed Pre Afterlife, A Crammed Life, So To Me The Most Important Thing Is You Know As Kipling Put It. [...] To Fill Every Unforgiving Minute With 60 Seconds Worth Of Distance Run.
Running
Distance
Stupid
People Sometimes Accuse Me Of Knowing A Lot. "stephen," They Say, Accusingly, "you Know A Lot." This Is A Bit Like Telling A Person Who Has A Few Grains Of Sand Clinging To Him That He Owns Much Sand. When You Consider The Vast Amount Of Sand There Is In The World Such A Person Is, To All Intents And Purposes, Sandless. We Are All Sandless. We Are All Ignorant. There Are Beaches And Deserts And Dunes Of Knowledge Whose Existance We Have Never Even Guessed At, Let Alone Visited.
Beach
Knowing
People
The Only Reason People Do Not Know Much Is Because They Do Not Care To Know. They Are Incurious. Incuriousity Is The Oddest And Most Foolish Failing There Is.
People
Care
Failing
The Part Of [oscar] Wilde Was Exceptionally Important To Me; The Man, His Achievements, His Wisdom, But His Downfall, His Disgrace And The Tragic And Bitter End To It Have Always Fascinated, Appalled And Attracted Me Since Childhood. It Was He Who First In Some Measure Vindicated My Sexuality.
Men
Childhood
Important
Because, Let's Face It, I Do Not Get Offered The Parts That Brad Pitt Has Just Turned Down.
Faces
Brad
Turned Down
There Is No Reason Why Anyone Should Understand How It Works… And Of Course No Reason Why Anyone Should Care … Unless You Are Curious, In Which Case I Love You, For Curiosity About The World And All Its Corners Is A Beautiful Thing.
Beautiful
Love You
Curiosity
I Like People Who Are As Unlike Me As Possible, Which Is Not An Expression Of Self Disgust Or Self Hatred, But It's Just That You Know You Obviously Particularly Admire Things That You Recognize Yourself As Not Having.
Self
Expression
People
History Is Not The Story Of Strangers, Aliens From Another Realm; It Is The Story Of Us Had We Been Born A Little Earlier. History Is Memory; We Have To Remember What It Is Like To Be A Roman, Or A Jacobite Or A Chartist Or Even - If We Dare, And We Should Dare - A Nazi. History Is Not Abstraction, It Is The Enemy Of Abstraction.
Memories
History
Enemy
As Humourless A Lump Of Dough As Ever Held A Torchlight Vigil Outside The South African Embassy Or Stuck An Aids Awareness Ribbon On An Unwilling First-nighter.
Funny
Humor
Ribbons
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