It's now very common to hear people say 'I'm rather offended by that'.
Interpretation
The quote highlights how people often express offense over trivial matters in modern society.
Stephen Fry's quote reflects a contemporary trend where people frequently assert being offended, often over comments or situations that may seem minor. This points to a cultural shift in sensitivity and reactions to differing opinions or jokes, inviting both critique and laughter regarding the perceived fragility of social discourse.
In practice
In a speech about free speech, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of tolerance towards humor.
I used many times to touch my own chest and feel, under its asthmatic quiver, the engine of the heart and lungs and blood and feel amazed at what I sensed was the enormity of the power I possessed. Not magical power, but real power. The power simply to go on, the power to endure, that is power enough, but I felt I had also the power to create, to add, to delight, to amaze and to transform.
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.
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.
As someone who worked hard for a Labour victory in the 90s, do I regret it? Not really. It was bound to happen. And it'll happen with the next government, and the one after it. Because all governments serve us. They serve the filth.
You can't just say there is a God because well, the world is beautiful. You have to account for bone cancer in children. You have to account for the fact that almost all animals in the wild live under stress with not enough to eat and will die violent and bloody deaths. 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.
Money is to Everything as an Aeroplane is to Australia. The aeroplane isn't Australia, but it remains the only practical way we know of reaching it. So perhaps, metonymically, the aeroplane is Australia after all.
Very often in Chekhov, where he exhibits a little bit of human behavior that you recognize as true, you give a little laugh. It's like a reflex.
A burglar who respects his art always takes his time before taking anything else.
Laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly.
Names are not always what they seem. The common Welsh name Bzjxxllwcp is pronounced Jackson.
If you'd given me the choice of going out and beating four men and smashing a goal in from thirty yards against Liverpool or going to bed with Miss World, it would have been a difficult choice. Luckily, I had both.
The news just came in from the County of Keck That a very small bug by the name of Van Vleck Is yawning so wide you can look down his neck. This may not seem very important, I know, but it Is, so I'm bothering telling you so.
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