Quotes from Iris Murdoch


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    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.

    Love | Change | Marriage


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

    Love | Worth | Base


    The cry of equality pulls everyone down.

    Equality | Cry | Pulls


    A bad review is even less important than whether it is raining in Patagonia.

    Raining | Review | Less


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

    Space | Hear | Planets


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

    Men | Thinking | Philosophy


    There is no substitute for the comfort supplied by the utterly taken-for-granted relationship.

    Comfort | Substitute | Utterly


    Being good is just a matter of temperament in the end.

    Good | Matter


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

    Future | Present | Prepared


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

    Art | Soul | Face


    I see myself as Rhoda, not Mary Tyler Moore.

    Mary | Moore | Tyler


    Human affairs are not serious, but they have to be taken seriously.

    Seriously | Serious | Affairs


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

    Truth | Moral | Spectrum


    I daresay anything can be made holy by being sincerely worshipped.

    Holy | Worshipped | Sincerely


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

    Marriage | Anywhere | Public


    Only lies and evil come from letting people off.

    Evil | Lies | Letting


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

    Literature | Emotions


    He was a sociologist; he had got into an intellectual muddle early on in life and never managed to get out.

    Life | Early | Muddle


    Happiness is a matter of one's most ordinary and everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self.

    Happiness | Busy | Self


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

    Truth | Life | Great


       

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