"He (a teacher at school) was the epitome of the Oxonian code of "effortless superiority" whereby to be seen trying really hard to achieve something … - John Cleese

"He (a teacher at school) was the epitome of the Oxonian code of "effortless superiority" whereby to be seen trying really hard to achieve something was in many ways worse than actually failing it."

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About John Cleese

John Marwood Cleese (born 27 October 1939) is an English comedian and actor best known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and for co-writing the TV series Fawlty Towers in which he played Basil Fawlty.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Alternative Names: John Marwood Cleese
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Additional quotes by John Cleese

but the insanity of punishing someone physically for getting an answer wrong. It is terrifying how much of this deeply unkind, utterly pointless, in fact, mind-bogglingly COUNTERPRODUCTIVE kind of behaviour was meted out to children over the centuries by half-witted, power-crazed zombies like this heinous old bat — a large proportion of such psychopaths allegedly acting in the name of an all-loving God

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But I think it's particularly worrying at the moment because you can only create in an atmosphere of freedom, where you're not checking everything you say critically before you move on. What you have to be able to do is to build without knowing where you're going because you've never been there before. That's what creativity is—you have to be allowed to build. And a lot of comedians now are sitting there and when they think of something, they say something like, 'Can I get away with it? I don't think so. So and so got into trouble, and he said that, oh, she said that.' You see what I mean? And that's the death of creativity. So I would say at the moment, this is a difficult time, particularly for young comedians, but you see, my audience is much older, and they're simply not interested in most of the woke attitudes. I mean, they just think that you should try and be kind to people and that's no need to complicate it, you know?

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