A university is not, thank heavens, a place for vocational instruction, it has nothing to do with training for a working life and career, it is a place for education, something quite different.
Interpretation
Education goes beyond vocational training, focusing on broader knowledge and critical thinking.
In this quote, Stephen Fry emphasizes the distinction between vocational instruction, which prepares individuals for specific careers, and a true university education, which aims to cultivate a well-rounded intellect and foster deeper understanding of various subjects. Fry suggests that higher education should prioritize critical thinking and personal growth rather than merely equipping students with job-specific skills.
In practice
In a graduation speech to emphasize the value of liberal arts education.
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.
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.
Employers, like most people, tend to trust their intuitions. But when employers decide whom to hire, they trust those intuitions far more than they should.
The assumption of all education is that learning will be directed toward constructive ends and I'm convinced that colleges should support students in their determination to be useful, self-sufficient, and productive.
I loved history because to me, history was like watching a movie.
A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.
One's work may be finished someday, but one's education never.
Governments want efficient technicians, not human beings, because human beings become dangerous to governments – and to organized religions as well. That is why governments and religious organizations seek to control education.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.