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.
You don't need a Harvard MBA to know that the bedroom and the boardroom are just two sides of the same ballgame.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that both personal and professional spaces share fundamental principles and challenges.
Stephen Fry's quote implies that the skills and insights gained in our personal relationships, such as those in the bedroom, are equally applicable in professional settings like the boardroom. It highlights the interconnectedness of our personal and professional lives, suggesting that navigating one can provide valuable lessons for the other. This understanding encourages us to see the broader picture of life, where interpersonal skills play a crucial role in all areas.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
Using this quote in a business presentation to emphasize the importance of interpersonal skills in the workplace.
More from Stephen Fry
All quotes →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.
It's now very common to hear people say 'I'm rather offended by that'.
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.
Similar quotes
Eloquence, at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection, but addresses itself entirely to the desires and affections, captivating the willing hearers, and subduing their understanding.
Whatever mitigates the woes, or increases the happiness of others, is a just criterion of goodness; and whatever injures society at large, or any individual in it, is a criterion of iniquity.
No one ever died from smoking marijuana, but millions of people have died by believing politicians.
I well remember it being said to me by an occultist of great experience that two things are necessary for safety in occultism, right motives and right associates.
That said, deciding to avoid other people does not necessarily equate with having no desire whatsoever for company; it may simply reflect a dissatisfaction with what—or who—is available. Cynics are, in the end, only idealists with awkwardly high standards. In Chamfort's words, 'It is sometimes said of a man who lives alone that he does not like society. This is like saying of a man that he does not like going for walks because he is not fond of walking at night in the forêt de Bondy.
All law is situational law. The sovereign produces and guarantees the situation in its totality. He has the monopoly over this last decision.