Iris Murdoch Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• Words are the most subtle symbols which we possess and our human fabric depends on them.

  Iris Murdoch

  Fabric, Subtle, Symbols

  Iris Murdoch (2013). “The Sovereignty of Good”, p.33, Routledge

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• Not to have been born is undoubtedly best, but sound sleep is second best.

  Iris Murdoch

  Sleep, Sound, Second Best

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• All art deals with the absurd and aims at the simple. Good art speaks truth, indeed is truth, perhaps the only truth.

  Iris Murdoch

  Art, Simple, Speak

  Iris Murdoch (2003). “The Black Prince”, p.24, Penguin

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• Love can't always do work. Sometimes it just has to look into the darkness.

  Iris Murdoch

  Love, Darkness, Looks

  Iris Murdoch (1978). “The Nice and the Good”, p.172, Penguin

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• Socrates wrote nothing. Christ wrote nothing.

  Iris Murdoch

  Literature, Christ

  Iris Murdoch (1984). “The Sacred and Profane Love Machine”, p.88, Penguin

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• Art is the final cunning of the human soul which would rather do anything than face the gods.

  Iris Murdoch

  Art, Soul, Finals

  Iris Murdoch (1999). “Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature”, p.491, Penguin

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• The best thing about being God would be making the heads.

  Iris Murdoch

  Would Be, Best Things

  Iris Murdoch (1976). “A Severed Head”, p.36, Penguin

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• A middling talent makes for a more serene life.

  Iris Murdoch

  Talent, Serene

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• What a test that is: more than devotion, admiration, passion. If you long and long for someone’s company you love them.

  Iris Murdoch

  Passion, Long, Tests

  Iris Murdoch (2001). “The Sea, The Sea”, p.46, Penguin

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• Real worship involves waiting.

  Iris Murdoch

  Faith, Real, Waiting

  Iris Murdoch (1969). “Bruno's dream”, Viking Adult

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• All art is the struggle to be, in a particular sort of way, virtuous.

  Iris Murdoch

  Art, Struggle, Literature

  "The Philosopher's Pupil".

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• There is a gulf fixed between those who can sleep and those who cannot. It is one of the greatest divisions of the human race.

  Iris Murdoch

  Sleep, Race, Division

  Iris Murdoch (2002). “Nuns and Soldiers”, p.35, Penguin

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• Marriage isn't a tram. It doesn't have to get anywhere.

  Iris Murdoch

  Marriage, Trams

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• The entry of a child into any situation changes the whole situation.

  Iris Murdoch

  Children, Situation, Entry

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• True love gallops, it flies, it is the swiftest of all modes of thought, swifter even than hate and fear.

  Iris Murdoch

  Hate, Hate And Fear

  Iris Murdoch (2002). “Nuns and Soldiers”, p.289, Penguin

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• Literature could be said to be a sort of disciplined technique for arousing certain emotions.

  Iris Murdoch

  Technique, Literature, Emotion

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• Art is not cozy and it is not mocked. Art tells the only truth that ultimately matters. It is the light by which human things can be mended. And after art there is, let me assure you all, nothing.

  Iris Murdoch

  Art, Light, Cozy

  Iris Murdoch (1999). “A Severed Head, The Black Prince, The Sea, The Sea”

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• Learning philosophy is learning a particular kind of intuitive understanding.

  Iris Murdoch

  Philosophy, Understanding, Kind

  Iris Murdoch (1994). “Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals”, p.209, Penguin

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• I have used the word "attention," which I borrow from Simone Weil, to express the idea of a just and loving gaze directed upon individual reality. I believe this to be the characteristic and proper mark of the active moral agent.

  Iris Murdoch

  Believe, Reality, Ideas

  Iris Murdoch (1967). “The Sovereignty of Good Over Other Concepts”, p.33, Psychology Press

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• We need a moral philosophy in which the concept of love, so rarely mentioned now by philosophers, can once again be made central.

  Iris Murdoch

  Love, Philosophy, Needs

  Iris Murdoch (1999). “Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature”, p.337, Penguin

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• Only lies and evil come from letting people off.

  Iris Murdoch

  Lying, Responsibility, People

  Iris Murdoch (1976). “A Severed Head”, p.52, Penguin

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• Mathematics is good for the soul, getting things right enlivens a sense of truth, efforts to understand automatically purify desires.

  Iris Murdoch

  Effort, Soul, Desire

  Iris Murdoch (1994). “Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals”, p.159, Penguin

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• Almost any tale of our doings is comic. We are bottomlessly comic to each other. Even the most adored and beloved person is comic to his lover. The novel is a comic form. Language is a comic form, and makes jokes in its sleep. God, if He existed, would laugh at His creation. Yet it is also the case that life is horrible, without metaphysical sense, wrecked by chance, pain and the close prospect of death. Out of this is born irony, our dangerous and necessary tool.

  Iris Murdoch

  Pain, Sleep, Laughing

  Iris Murdoch (2003). “The Black Prince”, p.80, Penguin

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• But fantasy kills imagination, pornography is death to art.

  Iris Murdoch

  Death, Art, Imagination

  Iris Murdoch (1990). “The Message to the Planet”, New York, N.Y., U.S.A. : Penguin Books

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• ... when caught unawares I usually tell the truth, and what's duller than that?

  Iris Murdoch

  Telling The Truth, Caught

  Iris Murdoch (1977). “Under the Net”, p.16, Penguin

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