Well, I'm having a good time. Which makes me feel guilty too. How very English.
Interpretation
The speaker enjoys a moment but feels guilty about that joy, reflecting a common English sensibility.
This quote by David Attenborough encapsulates the often paradoxical nature of human emotions where one can feel joy while simultaneously experiencing guilt. It showcases a uniquely English tradition of self-reflection and irony, suggesting that enjoyment may be accompanied by feelings of guilt due to social or cultural expectations.
In practice
In a speech about finding joy in difficult times, you could use this quote to illustrate the complexity of human feelings.
I don't think we are going to become extinct. We're very clever and extremely resourceful - and we will find ways of preserving ourselves, of that I'm sure. But whether our lives will be as rich as they are now is another question.
I'm against this huge globalisation on the basis of economic advantage.
I would be absolutely astounded if population growth and industrialisation and all the stuff we are pumping into the atmosphere hadn't changed the climatic balance. Of course it has. There is no valid argument for denial.
There's a small worm called Loa Loa Filariasis. This parasite can survive in one environment exclusively- namely, underneath the skin and inside the eyes of human beings. Children and the elderly in tropical regions (usually the poorest) are the most widely affected. A painful, slow death is virtually certain. The worm can actually live in the host for 17 years before the host finally dies.
The fundamental issue is the moral issue.
It is vital that there is a narrator figure whom people believe. That's why I never do commercials. If I started saying that margarine was the same as motherhood, people would think I was a liar.
I was so ugly that my parents sent my picture to 'ripley's believe it or not' - they sent it back and said, "we don't believe it."
People say satire is dead. It's not dead; it's alive and living in the White House.
You know what male comics can't do? They can't get pregnant. They can't perform pregnant. So my attitude is, just use all those differences.
You did what you were told or you didn't get paid, and if things went wrong it wasn't your problem. It was the fault of whatever idiot has accepted this message for sending in the first place. No one cared about you, and everyone at headquarters was an idiot. It wasn't your fault, no one listened to you. Headquarters had even started an Employee of the Month scheme to show how much they cared. That was how much they didn't care.
There are two insults no human being will endure: that he has no sense of humor, and that he has never known trouble.
That's what's great about standup comedy: the instant feedback. You get up on stage, you tell a joke, if it doesn't work, come back the next day with a better version of it.
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