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Iris Murdoch
33 quotes
“He felt neither guilt nor distress at the pleasure with which he was now filled by the proximity of this young creature, and when he discovered in himself even physical symptoms of his inclination he did not take fright, but continued cheerfully and serenely to see Nick whenever the ordinary run of his duties suggested it, congratulating himself upon the newly achieved solidity and rational calm of his spiritual life.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) first seen 1958 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Bell (1958) p. 91
“The chief requirement of the good life... is to live without any image of oneself.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) first seen 1958 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Bell (1958), ch. 9; 2001, p. 119.
“We can only learn to love by loving.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) first seen 1958 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Bell (1958), ch. 19; 2001, p. 219.
“Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real. Love, and so art and morals, is the discovery of reality.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) first seen 1959 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Sublime and the Good", in the Chicago Review, Vol. 13 Issue 3 (Autumn 1959) p. 51.
“Only lies and evil come from letting people off.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) first seen 1961 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Severed Head (1961); 1976, p. 61.
“There is no substitute for the comfort supplied by the utterly taken-for-granted relationship.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) first seen 1961 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Severed Head (1961); 1976, p. 181.
“I think being a woman is like being Irish... Everyone says you're important and nice, but you take second place all the same.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Red and the Green (1965), ch. 2, p. 30.
“Being good is just a matter of temperament in the end.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Nice and the Good (1968), ch. 14, p. 127.
“Happiness is a matter of one's most ordinary everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self. To be damned is for one's ordinary everyday mode of consciousness to be unremitting agonising preoccupation with self.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Nice and the Good (1968), ch. 22.
“People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Fairly Honourable Defeat (1970); 2001, p. 170.
“If we ignore the prior work of attention and notice only the emptiness of the moment of choice we are likely to identify freedom with the outward movement since there is nothing else to identify it with. But if we consider what the work of attention is like, how continuously it goes on, and how imperceptibly it builds up structures of value round about us, we shall not be surprised that at crucial moments of choice most of the business of choosing is already over.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Sovereignty of Good (1970) p. 36.
“Almost anything that consoles us is a fake.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Sovereignty of Good (1970) p. 59.
“Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Black Prince (1973); 2003, p. 10.
“All art is the struggle to be, in a particular sort of way, virtuous.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Black Prince (1973); 2003, p. 181.
“Bereavement is a darkness impenetrable to the imagination of the unbereaved.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) first seen 1974 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (1974) p. 37.
“To eat, teeth must meet.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) first seen 1974 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (1974), p. 66.
“The sin of pride may be a small or a great thing in someone's life, and hurt vanity a passing pinprick or a self-destroying or even murderous obsession. Possibly, more people kill themselves and others out of hurt vanity than out of envy, jealousy, malice or desire for revenge.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Philosopher's Pupil (1983) p. 76.
“Whit Meynell was a sociologist; he had got into an intellectual muddle early on in life and never managed to get out.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Philosopher's Pupil (1983) p. 165.
“Stuart was not dismayed by his sexual feelings about the boy.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Good Apprentice (1985), p. 247.
“Art is the final cunning of the human soul which would rather do anything than face the gods.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Art and Eros: A Dialogue about Art", Acastos: Two Platonic Dialogues (1986).
“Perhaps misguided moral passion is better than confused indifference.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) first seen 1987 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Book and the Brotherhood (1987) p. 248.
“The cry of equality pulls everyone down.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) first seen 1987 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in The Observer September 13, 1987.
“But fantasy kills imagination, pornography is death to art.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) first seen 1989 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Message to the Planet (1989) p. 43.
“I daresay anything can be made holy by being sincerely worshipped.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) first seen 1989 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Message to the Planet (1989) p. 322.
“Perhaps when distant people on other planets pick up some wave-length of ours all they hear is a continuous scream.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) first seen 1989 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Message to the Planet (1989) p. 509.
“The notion that one will not survive a particular catastrophe is, in general terms, a comfort since it is equivalent to abolishing the catastrophe.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) first seen 1989 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Message to the Planet (1989) p. 532.
“A bad review is even less important than whether it is raining in Patagonia.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) first seen 1989 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in The Times (6 July 1989).
“The only satisfied rationalists today are blinkered scientists or Marxists.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) said by 1999 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Serious reflexion about one's own character will often induce a curious sense of emptiness; and if one knows another person well, one may sometimes intuit a similar void in him. (This is one of the strange privileges of friendship.)”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) said by 1999 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All metaphysical theories are inconclusively vulnerable to positivist attack.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) said by 1999 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The role of philosophy might be said to be to extend and deepen the self-awareness of mankind.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) said by 1999 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The novel, the novel proper that is, is about people's treatment of each other, and so it is about human values.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) said by 1999 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We know that the real lesson to be taught is that the human person is precious and unique; but we seem unable to set it forth except in terms of ideology and abstraction.”
Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) said by 1999 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source