Iris Murdoch Quotes

Iris Murdoch (38)

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

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Today's Anniversary - 19th May

Births

• 1959 - Nicole Brown Simpson
• 1925 - Pol Pot
• 1991 - Jordan Pruitt
• 1879 - Nancy Astor
• 1945 - Pete Townshend

Deaths

• 1984 - John Betjeman
• 1898 - William Ewart Gladstone
• 1994 - Jacqueline Kennedy
• 1989 - C. L. R. James
• 1840 - John Adair

• Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one’s luck.

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Humor

  Tags in Married, Amazed, Writing

• The cry of equality pulls everyone down.

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Equality, Cry

• 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 Nature

  Tags in People, Planet

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

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Struggle, Virtuous

• Anything that consoles is fake.

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Anything, Consoles

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

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Anything, Human

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

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Matter, Good

• Every man needs two women: a quiet home-maker, and a thrilling nymph.

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Women, Thrilling

• Falling out of love is chiefly a matter of forgetting how charming someone is.

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Matter, Forgetting

• Falling out of love is very enlightening. For a short while you see the world with new eyes.

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Love

  Tags in World, Falling

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

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Matter, Happiness, Ordinary

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

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Managed, Intellectual

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

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Human, Serious

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

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Sincerely, Holy

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

  Iris Murdoch

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Myself

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Important, Woman, Think

• 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