“Place honey on the altars and die,
You lovers that are bitter at heart.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet
The Man With the Blue Guitar (1937)
“I am a lover of truth, a worshipper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance.”
"Trefusis Blasphemes" radio broadcast, as published in Paperweight (1993)
1990s
Context: I am a lover of truth, a worshipper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance. That is my religion, and every day I am sorely, grossly, heinously and deeply offended, wounded, mortified and injured by a thousand different blasphemies against it. When the fundamental canons of truth, honesty, compassion and decency are hourly assaulted by fatuous bishops, pompous, illiberal and ignorant priests, politicians and prelates, sanctimonious censors, self-appointed moralists and busy-bodies, what recourse of ancient laws have I? None whatever. Nor would I ask for any. For unlike these blistering imbeciles my belief in my religion is strong and I know that lies will always fail and indecency and intolerance will always perish.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Do you have more details about the quote "I am a lover of truth, a worshipper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance." by Stephen Fry?
Stephen Fry93
English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist 1957Related quotes
William James book The Varieties of Religious Experience
Lectures XIV and XV, "The Value of Saintliness"
Source: 1900s, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
Context: I am well aware of how anarchic much of what I say may sound. Expressing myself thus abstractly and briefly, I may seem to despair of the very notion of truth. But I beseech you to reserve your judgment until we see it applied to the details which lie before us. I do indeed disbelieve that we or any other mortal men can attain on a given day to absolutely incorrigible and unimprovable truth about such matters of fact as those with which religions deal. But I reject this dogmatic ideal not out of a perverse delight in intellectual instability. I am no lover of disorder and doubt as such. Rather do I fear to lose truth by this pretension to possess it already wholly.
R.S. Thomas (1913–2000) Welsh poet
"Homage to Wallace Stevens"
No Truce with the Furies (1995)
“Purity is the feminine, Truth the masculine, of Honour.”
David Hare (1947) British writer
Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare Guesses at Truth (London: Macmillan, ([1827-48] 1867) p. 180.
Misattributed
“I am there where it is spoken that the universe is a defect in the purity of non-being.”
Jacques Lacan (1901–1981) French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist
“I am not a dog lover. A dog lover to me means a dog that is in love with another dog.”
James Thurber (1894–1961) American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright
"I Like Dogs", For Men (April 1939); reprinted in People Have More Fun Than Anybody (1994); slightly paraphrased in "And So to Medve", Thurber's Dogs (1955)
From other writings