Iris Murdoch Quotes

• I see myself as Rhoda, not Mary Tyler Moore.

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Myself

• In almost every marriage there is a selfish and an unselfish partner. A pattern is set up and soon becomes inflexible, of one person always making the demands and one person always giving way.

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Marriage, Person, Selfish

• In philosophy if you aren’t moving at a snail’s pace you aren’t moving at all.

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Moving, Philosophy

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

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Disciplined, Technique

• Love is the difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Love

  Tags in Difficult, Realization

• Moralistic is not moral. And as for truth – well, it’s like brown – it’s not in the spectrum. Truth is so generic.

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Truth

  Tags in Moral, Generic

• No love is entirely without worth, even when the frivolous calls to the frivolous and the base to the base.

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Love

  Tags in Without, Frivolous, Entirely

• One doesn’t have to get anywhere in a marriage. It’s not a public conveyance.

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Public, Marriage

• Only lies and evil come from letting people off.

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People, Evil

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Think, Better, Things

• Perhaps misguided moral passion is better than confused indifference.

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Indifference, Confused, Better

• Perhaps when distant people on other planets pick up some wavelength of ours all they hear is a continuous scream.

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People, Continuous, Distant

• Philosophy! Empty thinking by ignorant conceited men who think they can digest without eating!

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Think, Ignorant, Empty

• The absolute yearning of one human body for another particular body and its indifference to substitutes is one of life’s major mysteries.

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Indifference, Mysteries, Human

• The cry of equality pulls everyone down.

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Equality, Cry

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Survive, Comfort, General

• The priesthood is a marriage. People often start by falling in love, and they go on for years without realizing that love must change into some other love which is so unlike it that it can hardly be recognized as love at all.

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People, Marriage, Recognized

• We can only learn to love by loving.

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Learn, Loving

• We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality.

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Fantasy, Great, Reality

• We shall be better prepared for the future if we see how terrible, how doomed the present is.

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Better, Terrible

Iris Murdoch (42)

Birth:	15th July, 1919
Death:	8th February, 1999
Nationality:	British
Profession:	Novelist, Philosopher

About

Dame Iris Murdoch was an Irish-born British author and philosopher, best known for her novels about good and evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious. Her first published novel, Under the Net, was selected in 1998 as one of Modern Library's 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. In 1987, she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. In 2008, The Times ranked Murdoch twelfth on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".

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Births

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• 1935 - Thomas H. Kean
• 1909 - Rollo May
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• 1959 - Robert Smith

Deaths

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• 1985 - Tancredo Neves
• 1851 - James Barron
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