Freedom may be a value in politics, but it is not a value in morals.
IRIS MURDOCHFreedom may be a value in politics, but it is not a value in morals.
IRIS MURDOCHI took a deep breath, however, and followed my rule of never speaking frankly to women in moments of emotion. No good ever comes of this.
IRIS MURDOCHAn experience is richest not talked of.
IRIS MURDOCHEvery book is the wreck of a perfect idea.
IRIS MURDOCHOur actions are like ships which we may watch set out to sea, and not know when or with what cargo they will return to port.
IRIS MURDOCHEvery man needs two women, a quiet home-maker, and a thrilling nymph.
IRIS MURDOCHFor most of us, for almost all of us, truth can be attained, if at all, only in silence. It is in silence that the human spirit touches the divine.
IRIS MURDOCHWhat I needed with all my starved and silent soul was just that particular way of shouting back at the world.
IRIS MURDOCHWe are all the judges and the judged, victims of the casual malice and fantasy of others, and ready sources of fantasy and malice in our turn. And if we are sometimes accused of sins of which we are innocent, are there not also other sins of which we are guilty and of which the world knows nothing?
IRIS MURDOCHWe need a moral philosophy which can speak significantly of Freud and Marx and out of which aesthetic and political views can be generated. We need a moral philosophy in which the concept of love, so rarely mentioned now, can once again be made central.
IRIS MURDOCHOnly take someone’s hand in a certain way, even look into their eyes in a certain way, and the world is changed forever.
IRIS MURDOCHThat doesn’t sound like you, you ride every wave. There is one that will drown me
IRIS MURDOCHPerhaps when distant people on other planets pick up some wavelength of ours all they hear is a continuous scream.
IRIS MURDOCHPerhaps there was an intimacy which did not need words.
IRIS MURDOCHFalling out of love is chiefly a matter of forgetting how charming someone is.
IRIS MURDOCHHer eyes, which refused to meet mine, had the defensive coldness of those who are determined to lose hope.
IRIS MURDOCH