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However life, unlike art, has an irritating way of bumping and limping on, undoing conversions, casting doubt on solutions, and generally illustrating the impossibility of living happily or virtuously ever after.

Iris Murdoch

For 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 MURDOCH

Divine Human Silence Touch Truth
Love is the Extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.
IRIS MURDOCH

Difficult Love Oneself Reality
How huge it is, how empty, this great space for which I have been longing all my life. Still no letters.
IRIS MURDOCH

Empty Greatness Life Space
Perhaps when distant people on other planets pick up some wavelength of ours all they hear is a continuous scream.
IRIS MURDOCH

Distance Ourselves People
Reading and writing and the preservation of language and its forms and the kind of eloquence and the kind of beauty which the language is capable of is terribly important to the human beings because this is connected to thought.
IRIS MURDOCH

Connection Important Kind Language Reading Writing
Our 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 MURDOCH

Action Future Ourselves Sea
But one must do something about the past. It doesn’t just cease to be. It goes on existing and affecting the present, and in new and different ways, as if in some other dimension it too were growing.
IRIS MURDOCH

Different Existence Growth Past Present
Jealousy is the most dreadfully involuntary of all sins.
IRIS MURDOCH

Crime Sin Spiritual
We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality says Iris Murdoch. But given the state of the world, is it wise?
IRIS MURDOCH

Fantasy Greatness Illusion Life Live Reality Wisdom World
I 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 MURDOCH

Breathe Emotional Goodness Moments Myself Rule Woman
Between saying and doing, many a pair of shoes is worn out.
IRIS MURDOCH

Action Philosophy Talk
Time, like the sea, unties all knots.
IRIS MURDOCH

Deep Philosophy Sea Time
Of course reading and thinking are important but, my God, food is important too.
IRIS MURDOCH

Food God Important Reading Thinking
The talk of lovers who have just declared their love is one of life’s most sweet delights. Each vies with the other in humility, in amazement at being so valued. The past is searched for the first signs and each one is in haste to declare all that he is so that no part of his being escapes the hallowing touch.
IRIS MURDOCH

Escape Life Love Talk Value
Freedom may be a value in politics, but it is not a value in morals.
IRIS MURDOCH

Freedom Moral Politics Value
One should go easy on smashing other people’s lies. Better to concentrate on one’s own.
IRIS MURDOCH

Easy Lie Oneself People

However life, unlike art, has an irritating way of bumping and limping on, undoing conversions, casting doubt on solutions, and generally illustrating the impossibility of living happily or virtuously ever after.

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However life, unlike art, has an irritating way of bumping and limping on, undoing conversions, casting doubt on solutions, and generally illustrating the impossibility of living happily or virtuously ever after.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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