Search quotes

Link	Quote	Tags	Author
71e40f1	One forgot, one forgot. What hold had one on the past? The present moment was a little travelling in darkness.	past	Iris Murdoch
98b659c	And do stop sneezing. It annoys me so much when people sneeze.		Iris Murdoch
db5ae62	Your coldness has ruined my life. All right, you didn't mean it, all right I was a schoolgirl, but you could have been kinder to someone who said they loved you, you could have been gentle and grateful.	declaration-of-love harsh iris-murdoch rejection ruined-lives the-message-to-the-planet	Iris Murdoch
f67684d	When the sun was set I might perhaps go to sleep. I never let myself sleep during the day. Daytime sleep is a cursed slumber from which one wakes in despair. The sun will not tolerate it. If he can he will pry under your eyelids and prise them apart; and if you hang black curtains at your windows he will lay siege to your room until it is so stifling that at last you stagger with staring eyes to the window and tear back the curtains to see ..		Iris Murdoch
8338d61	How mysterious night and day are, this endless procession off dark and light....I think such sad thoughts - of people in trouble and afraid, all lonely people all prisoners.		Iris Murdoch
22523a2	It is necessary to write, that much is clear, and to write in a way quite unlike any way which I have employed before.	self-deception truth writers writing	Iris Murdoch
b72fe87	As soon as any idea is a consolation the tendency to falsify it becomes strong: hence the traditional problem of preventing the idea of God from degenerating in the believer's mind.		Iris Murdoch
ee0fe07	Even if readers claim that they 'take it all with a grain of salt', they do not really. They yearn to believe, and they believe, because believing is easier than disbelieving, and because anything which is written down is likely to be 'true in a way'.	façades fiction readers reading writing	Iris Murdoch
2c24070	The self, the place where we live, is a place of illusion. Goodness is connected with the attempt to see the unself, to see and to respond to the real world in the light of a virtuous consciousness. This is the non-metaphysical meaning of the idea of transcendence to which philosophers have so constantly resorted in their explanations of goodness. 'Good is a transcendent reality' means that virtue is the attempt to pierce the veil of selfis..	good human-nature illusion real transcendence	Iris Murdoch
46e3320	If I see her she may kill hope.		Iris Murdoch
9dc2c37	The same virtues, in the end, the same virtue (love), are required throughout, and fantasy (self) can prevent us from seeing a blade of grass just as it can prevent us from seeing another person. An increasing awareness of 'goods' and the attempt (usually only partially successful) to attend to them purely, without self, brings with it an increasing awareness of the unity and interdependence of the moral world. One-seeking intelligence is t..	fantasy good illusion intellect love self unity vision	Iris Murdoch
375eb56	Your love for me does not exist in the real world. Yes, it is love, I do not deny it. But not every love has a course to run, smooth or otherwise, and this love has no course at all . . . But that is remote from love and remote from ordinary life. As real people we do not exist for each other.	figurative-language impossible-love iris-murdoch love unrequited-love	Iris Murdoch
d7a8c6f	I could not see other human beings at present.	alone antisocial iris-murdoch misanthropic recluse seclusion	Iris Murdoch
4bb865e	He felt as if he were under an intolerable physical strain, as if his body were likely at any moment to fly to pieces. Other strange physical symptoms came to trouble him. An unpleasant odour lingered in his nostrils, as if he could literally smell the sulphur of the pit; and he had from time to time the curious illusion that his flesh was turning black. He had to look continually at his hands to be sure that it was not so. Nightmares troub..		Iris Murdoch
39eda6c	And I thought, rolling my head to and fro between my hands in anguish, oh if only it could have worked somehow for us two.	if-only in-another-life iris-murdoch star-crossed-lovers the-sea-the-sea unrequited-love	Iris Murdoch
6388a0b	We shall meet, but as strangers. It is the end of an era. A whole part of my life is torn away.	iris-murdoch parting sad separation strangers the-end-of-an-era the-green-knight	Iris Murdoch
3c675f3	Yet on the other hand, I did manage to write, and without more than occasional repining, during my years of bondage, and I would not, as some unsatisfied writers do, blame my lack of productivity upon my lack of time.		Iris Murdoch
ad314a7	Love is no respecter of ages, everyone knows that.		Iris Murdoch
d71b68e	It might be most dramatically effective to begin the tale at the moment when Arnold Baffin rang me up and said, "Bradley, could you come round here please, I think I have just killed my wife."	dramatic iris-murdoch meta narrative narrator opening storytelling the-black-prince	Iris Murdoch
add2c7c	Disapproving of things is all right. But you mustn't disapprove of people. It cuts you off.		Iris Murdoch
7851f1c	I had deluded myself throughout by the idea of reviving a secret love which did not exist at all.	iris-murdoch love secret-love the-sea-the-sea unrequited-love	Iris Murdoch
ea951d7	He dreamt...he was a huge white egg floating in the sea of turquoise blue, and he was everything that there was.		Iris Murdoch
46198ad	I have always attributed a great importance to eyes. How mysteriously expressive those damp orbs can be; the eyeball does not change and yet it is the window of the soul. And colour in eyes is, in its nature and inherence, quite unlike colour in any other substance. Mr Osmand had grey eyes, but his eyes were hard and speckled like Aberdeen granite, while Tommy's were clear and empty like light smoke.		Iris Murdoch
f2e104d	Don't tease me. Everything wounds me now except perfect kindness.	iris-murdoch kindness sensitive teasing the-green-knight	Iris Murdoch
3f8737c	I am, I must confess, an obsessive and superstitious letter-writer. When I am troubled I will write any long letter rather than make a telephone call. This is perhaps because I invest letters with magical power. To desiderate something in a letter is, I often irrationally feel, tantamount to bringing it about. A letter is a barrier, a reprieve, a charm against the world, an almost infallible method of acting at a distance. (And, it must be ..	iris-murdoch letters magical obsessive superstitious the-black-prince writing	Iris Murdoch
b8cabb6	Your infatuation will end in tears.	heartbreak infatuation iris-murdoch tears the-message-to-the-planet warning	Iris Murdoch
87809f9	There is a time limit to how long a spirited young person can be kept in cold storage.	iris-murdoch limbo on-the-shelf spirited youth	Iris Murdoch
3e32f51	And she did seem then to go to sleep instantly: the quick flight into oblivion of the chronically unhappy person.	depression iris-murdoch oblivion sleep the-sea-the-sea unhappy	Iris Murdoch
aff24b1	Only take someone's hand in a certain way, even look into their eyes in a certain way, and the world is changed forever.	gazing holding-hands iris-murdoch irrevocable love romance romantic the-black-prince touch	Iris Murdoch
062fa4e	You can't magic yourself out of the situation, you've got to live it as decently and as grimly as you can.	grim iris-murdoch magic the-message-to-the-planet trapped	Iris Murdoch
98756c2	I know girls aren't supposed to tell, but I've got to tell--just in case you should fail to love me because you never knew how much I loved you. I want not to have to say later--I wish I'd told him.	declaration-of-love gender-roles henry-and-cato if-only iris-murdoch love romance romantic-love unrequited-love	Iris Murdoch
995b2e2	I've been so unhappy for years, so unhappy . . . I don't understand how a human being can be so unhappy all the time and still be alive.	iris-murdoch miserable suffering suicidal the-black-prince unending unendurable unhappy	Iris Murdoch
374a2b7	Let me sleep at last. I've had misery enough in my life. You said there was nowhere to go to. There is death to go to. I've had misery enough in my life.	desperate escape iris-murdoch misery sleep suicidal the-black-prince	Iris Murdoch
b05d5c1	I know people can be awful dooms for each other.	doom iris-murdoch the-black-prince toxic-people toxic-relationships unhealthy	Iris Murdoch
0882153	In a century or two this planet will have been destroyed by external cosmic forces or by the senseless activity of the human race. Human life is a freak phenomenon, soon to be blotted out. That is a consoling thought. Meanwhile we are surrounded by strange invisible entities, possibly your angels." "I hope so." "Ah, you think they are good, they be good, there is no good, the tendency to evil is overwhelming. One has only to think of the ..	end-of-the-world humor iris-murdoch misanthrope pessimistic recluse relationship the-green-knight	Iris Murdoch
842ef2f	God lives and works in history. The outward mythology changes, the inward truth remains the same.	mythology	Iris Murdoch
c51fc3e	La gente no suele saber aplicar la filosofia. Dudo de que ni siquiera los filosofos sepan hacerlo. --La gente puede usar conceptos morales lo mismo que tu has usado ahora el concepto de la verdad para convencerme. Cualquiera puede hacerlo. --Quiza. Pero creo que la filosofia moral es algo que resulta desesperanzadamente personal. No puede ser comunicado. <>, ha dicho Wittgenstein.	moral verdad wittgenstein	Iris Murdoch
364cdb3	Of course one never knows about other people's loves, and I would certainly never know about James's.	love loves other-people private the-sea-the-sea unknowable	Iris Murdoch
1453138	If there is any fruitless mental torment which is greater than that of jealousy it is perhaps remorse. Even the pains of loss may be less searching; and often of course these agonies combine, as now they did for me. I say remorse not repentance. I doubt if I have ever experienced repentance in a pure form; perhaps it does not exist in a pure form. Remorse contains guilt, but helpless hopeless guilt which knows of no cure for the painful bit..	guilt iris-murdoch jealousy remorse repentance the-sea-the-sea torment	Iris Murdoch
e7c0f3e	You talk of freedom -- I've never had it! I've been lonely and miserable and in despair, and you want me to consent to all that all over again!	freedom iris-murdoch lonely misery the-message-to-the-planet	Iris Murdoch
6c00b72	And suffering we know breeds images, it breeds the most beautiful images of all.	contradictory contrasting henry-and-cato images inspiration iris-murdoch juxtaposition suffering	Iris Murdoch
36261b7	I took him for a kind of buffoon. Now I see he is a devil.	devil enemy first-impression iris-murdoch the-green-knight underestimated	Iris Murdoch
d1cf6e8	Give yourself to these great works of art. They suffice for a lifetime.	art enduring great-works-of-art iris-murdoch lifetime the-black-prince works-of-art	Iris Murdoch
b5e3676	Sometimes I feel I am crammed with demons.	demons internal-struggle iris-murdoch possessed the-message-to-the-planet tormented	Iris Murdoch

One forgot, one forgot. What hold had one on the past? The present moment was a little travelling in darkness.

past

Iris Murdoch

98b659c

And do stop sneezing. It annoys me so much when people sneeze.

Iris Murdoch

db5ae62

Your coldness has ruined my life. All right, you didn't mean it, all right I was a schoolgirl, but you could have been kinder to someone who said they loved you, you could have been gentle and grateful.

declaration-of-love harsh iris-murdoch rejection ruined-lives the-message-to-the-planet

Iris Murdoch

f67684d

When the sun was set I might perhaps go to sleep. I never let myself sleep during the day. Daytime sleep is a cursed slumber from which one wakes in despair. The sun will not tolerate it. If he can he will pry under your eyelids and prise them apart; and if you hang black curtains at your windows he will lay siege to your room until it is so stifling that at last you stagger with staring eyes to the window and tear back the curtains to see ..

Iris Murdoch

8338d61

How mysterious night and day are, this endless procession off dark and light....I think such sad thoughts - of people in trouble and afraid, all lonely people all prisoners.

Iris Murdoch

22523a2

It is necessary to write, that much is clear, and to write in a way quite unlike any way which I have employed before.

self-deception truth writers writing

Iris Murdoch

b72fe87

As soon as any idea is a consolation the tendency to falsify it becomes strong: hence the traditional problem of preventing the idea of God from degenerating in the believer's mind.

Iris Murdoch

ee0fe07

Even if readers claim that they 'take it all with a grain of salt', they do not really. They yearn to believe, and they believe, because believing is easier than disbelieving, and because anything which is written down is likely to be 'true in a way'.

façades fiction readers reading writing

Iris Murdoch

2c24070

The self, the place where we live, is a place of illusion. Goodness is connected with the attempt to see the unself, to see and to respond to the real world in the light of a virtuous consciousness. This is the non-metaphysical meaning of the idea of transcendence to which philosophers have so constantly resorted in their explanations of goodness. 'Good is a transcendent reality' means that virtue is the attempt to pierce the veil of selfis..

good human-nature illusion real transcendence

Iris Murdoch

46e3320

If I see her she may kill hope.

Iris Murdoch

9dc2c37

The same virtues, in the end, the same virtue (love), are required throughout, and fantasy (self) can prevent us from seeing a blade of grass just as it can prevent us from seeing another person. An increasing awareness of 'goods' and the attempt (usually only partially successful) to attend to them purely, without self, brings with it an increasing awareness of the unity and interdependence of the moral world. One-seeking intelligence is t..

fantasy good illusion intellect love self unity vision

Iris Murdoch

375eb56

Your love for me does not exist in the real world. Yes, it is love, I do not deny it. But not every love has a course to run, smooth or otherwise, and this love has no course at all . . . But that is remote from love and remote from ordinary life. As real people we do not exist for each other.

figurative-language impossible-love iris-murdoch love unrequited-love

Iris Murdoch

d7a8c6f

I could not see other human beings at present.

alone antisocial iris-murdoch misanthropic recluse seclusion

Iris Murdoch

4bb865e

He felt as if he were under an intolerable physical strain, as if his body were likely at any moment to fly to pieces. Other strange physical symptoms came to trouble him. An unpleasant odour lingered in his nostrils, as if he could literally smell the sulphur of the pit; and he had from time to time the curious illusion that his flesh was turning black. He had to look continually at his hands to be sure that it was not so. Nightmares troub..

Iris Murdoch

39eda6c

And I thought, rolling my head to and fro between my hands in anguish, oh if only it could have worked somehow for us two.

if-only in-another-life iris-murdoch star-crossed-lovers the-sea-the-sea unrequited-love

Iris Murdoch

6388a0b

We shall meet, but as strangers. It is the end of an era. A whole part of my life is torn away.

iris-murdoch parting sad separation strangers the-end-of-an-era the-green-knight

Iris Murdoch

3c675f3

Yet on the other hand, I did manage to write, and without more than occasional repining, during my years of bondage, and I would not, as some unsatisfied writers do, blame my lack of productivity upon my lack of time.

Iris Murdoch

ad314a7

Love is no respecter of ages, everyone knows that.

Iris Murdoch

d71b68e

It might be most dramatically effective to begin the tale at the moment when Arnold Baffin rang me up and said, "Bradley, could you come round here please, I think I have just killed my wife."

dramatic iris-murdoch meta narrative narrator opening storytelling the-black-prince

Iris Murdoch

add2c7c

Disapproving of things is all right. But you mustn't disapprove of people. It cuts you off.

Iris Murdoch

7851f1c

I had deluded myself throughout by the idea of reviving a secret love which did not exist at all.

iris-murdoch love secret-love the-sea-the-sea unrequited-love

Iris Murdoch

ea951d7

He dreamt...he was a huge white egg floating in the sea of turquoise blue, and he was everything that there was.

Iris Murdoch

46198ad

I have always attributed a great importance to eyes. How mysteriously expressive those damp orbs can be; the eyeball does not change and yet it is the window of the soul. And colour in eyes is, in its nature and inherence, quite unlike colour in any other substance. Mr Osmand had grey eyes, but his eyes were hard and speckled like Aberdeen granite, while Tommy's were clear and empty like light smoke.

Iris Murdoch

f2e104d

Don't tease me. Everything wounds me now except perfect kindness.

iris-murdoch kindness sensitive teasing the-green-knight

Iris Murdoch

3f8737c

I am, I must confess, an obsessive and superstitious letter-writer. When I am troubled I will write any long letter rather than make a telephone call. This is perhaps because I invest letters with magical power. To desiderate something in a letter is, I often irrationally feel, tantamount to bringing it about. A letter is a barrier, a reprieve, a charm against the world, an almost infallible method of acting at a distance. (And, it must be ..

iris-murdoch letters magical obsessive superstitious the-black-prince writing

Iris Murdoch

b8cabb6

Your infatuation will end in tears.

heartbreak infatuation iris-murdoch tears the-message-to-the-planet warning

Iris Murdoch

87809f9

There is a time limit to how long a spirited young person can be kept in cold storage.

iris-murdoch limbo on-the-shelf spirited youth

Iris Murdoch

3e32f51

And she did seem then to go to sleep instantly: the quick flight into oblivion of the chronically unhappy person.

depression iris-murdoch oblivion sleep the-sea-the-sea unhappy

Iris Murdoch

aff24b1

Only take someone's hand in a certain way, even look into their eyes in a certain way, and the world is changed forever.

gazing holding-hands iris-murdoch irrevocable love romance romantic the-black-prince touch

Iris Murdoch

062fa4e

You can't magic yourself out of the situation, you've got to live it as decently and as grimly as you can.

grim iris-murdoch magic the-message-to-the-planet trapped

Iris Murdoch

98756c2

I know girls aren't supposed to tell, but I've got to tell--just in case you should fail to love me because you never knew how much I loved you. I want not to have to say later--I wish I'd told him.

declaration-of-love gender-roles henry-and-cato if-only iris-murdoch love romance romantic-love unrequited-love

Iris Murdoch

995b2e2

I've been so unhappy for years, so unhappy . . . I don't understand how a human being can be so unhappy all the time and still be alive.

iris-murdoch miserable suffering suicidal the-black-prince unending unendurable unhappy

Iris Murdoch

374a2b7

Let me sleep at last. I've had misery enough in my life. You said there was nowhere to go to. There is death to go to. I've had misery enough in my life.

desperate escape iris-murdoch misery sleep suicidal the-black-prince

Iris Murdoch

b05d5c1

I know people can be awful dooms for each other.

doom iris-murdoch the-black-prince toxic-people toxic-relationships unhealthy

Iris Murdoch

0882153

In a century or two this planet will have been destroyed by external cosmic forces or by the senseless activity of the human race. Human life is a freak phenomenon, soon to be blotted out. That is a consoling thought. Meanwhile we are surrounded by strange invisible entities, possibly your angels." "I hope so." "Ah, you think they are good, they be good, there is no good, the tendency to evil is overwhelming. One has only to think of the ..

end-of-the-world humor iris-murdoch misanthrope pessimistic recluse relationship the-green-knight

Iris Murdoch

842ef2f

God lives and works in history. The outward mythology changes, the inward truth remains the same.

mythology

Iris Murdoch

c51fc3e

La gente no suele saber aplicar la filosofia. Dudo de que ni siquiera los filosofos sepan hacerlo. --La gente puede usar conceptos morales lo mismo que tu has usado ahora el concepto de la verdad para convencerme. Cualquiera puede hacerlo. --Quiza. Pero creo que la filosofia moral es algo que resulta desesperanzadamente personal. No puede ser comunicado. <>, ha dicho Wittgenstein.

moral verdad wittgenstein

Iris Murdoch

364cdb3

Of course one never knows about other people's loves, and I would certainly never know about James's.

love loves other-people private the-sea-the-sea unknowable

Iris Murdoch

1453138

If there is any fruitless mental torment which is greater than that of jealousy it is perhaps remorse. Even the pains of loss may be less searching; and often of course these agonies combine, as now they did for me. I say remorse not repentance. I doubt if I have ever experienced repentance in a pure form; perhaps it does not exist in a pure form. Remorse contains guilt, but helpless hopeless guilt which knows of no cure for the painful bit..

guilt iris-murdoch jealousy remorse repentance the-sea-the-sea torment