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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

We 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 MURDOCH

Fantasy Guilty Judgement Ourselves Sin World
Let us not waste love, it is rare enough.
IRIS MURDOCH

Enough Love Rare Wasted
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

Flower Joy Mad People Thinking Time
Coffee, unless it is very good and made by somebody else, is pretty intolerable at any time.
IRIS MURDOCH

Food Goodness Tolerance
People have obsessions and fears and passions which they don’t admit to. I think every character is interesting and has extremes. It’s the novelist privilege to see how odd everyone is.
IRIS MURDOCH

Character. Priviledge Fear Myself Passion People Thinking
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
Violence is born of the desire to escape oneself.
IRIS MURDOCH

Born Desire Escape Oneself Violence
What an extraordinary satisfaction there is in cleaning things! (Does the satisfaction depend on ownership? I suspect so.
IRIS MURDOCH

Extraordinary Myself Satisfaction
We 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 MURDOCH

Moral Need Philosophy Politics
I’ve felt as if I didn’t exist, as if I were invisible, miles away from the world, miles away. You can’t imagine how much alone I’ve been all my life.
IRIS MURDOCH

Alone Existence Imagination Life Myself World
People have disappointed me and deceived me and let me down.
IRIS MURDOCH

Disappoint Myself People
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
Between saying and doing, many a pair of shoes is worn out.
IRIS MURDOCH

Action Philosophy Talk
What I needed with all my starved and silent soul was just that particular way of shouting back at the world.
IRIS MURDOCH

Myself Need Silence Soul World
Art and psychoanalisis give shape and meaning to life and that’s why we adore them. However, life as it is lived has no shape nor meaning, and that’s what I am experiencing right now.
IRIS MURDOCH

Art Experience Life Live Right
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
I feel I’m at the end of something – everything is going to be different – and terrible.
IRIS MURDOCH

Different End Feeling Myself
I just enjoy translating, it’s like opening one’s mouth and hearing someone else’s voice emerge.
IRIS MURDOCH

Enjoyment Myself Voice
We are all prisoner, but the name of our cure is not freedom.
IRIS MURDOCH

Deep Freedom Philosophy Prison
One should go easy on smashing other people’s lies. Better to concentrate on one’s own.
IRIS MURDOCH

Easy Lie Oneself People
Anything that consoles is fake.
IRIS MURDOCH

Fake One Liner
What a test that is: more than devotion, admiration, passion. If you long and long for someone’s company you love them.
IRIS MURDOCH

Company Love Passion Yourself
One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats, and if some of these can be inexpensive and quickly procured so much the better.
IRIS MURDOCH

Better Happiness Life Oneself Quick Secret
This sort of quiet gazing, which was like a feeding of the heart.
IRIS MURDOCH

Heart Quiet See
Jealousy is perhaps the most involuntary of all strong emotions. It steals consciousness, it lies deeper than thought. It is always there, like a blackness in the eye, it discolours the world.
IRIS MURDOCH

Black Emotional Lie Strong World
In philosophy if you aren’t moving at a snail’s pace you aren’t moving at all.
IRIS MURDOCH

Philosophy Speed
One of the secrets of a happy life is continous small treats.
IRIS MURDOCH

Food Greatness Happiness Oneself Reward Secret

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?

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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?

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Iris Murdoch Quotes