Quote

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

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Iris Murdoch
Age: 79 †
Born: 1919
Born: July 15
Died: 1999
Died: February 8
Author
Biographer
Novelist
Philosopher
Poet
Professor
Prosaist
Writer
Dublin city
Jean Iris Murdoch
Dame Iris Murdoch
Quickly
Small
Secret
Happy
Procured
Better
Inexpensive
Much
Continuous
Life
Secrets
Treats

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Dogs are very different from cats in that they can be images of human virtue. They are like us.
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Art is not cozy and it is not mocked. Art tells the only truth that ultimately matters. It is the light by which human things can be mended. And after art there is, let me assure you all, nothing.
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So we live a spirit that broods and hovers over the continual death of time, the lost meaning, the unrecaptured moment, the unremembered face, until the final chop that ends all our moments and plunges that spirit back into the void from which it came.
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Perhaps when distant people on other planets pick up some wavelength of ours all they hear is a continuous scream.
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In philosophy if you aren't moving at a snail's pace you aren't moving at all.
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The sending of a letter constitutes a magical grasp upon the future.
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evil soon makes tools out of those who don't hate it.
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Language is a machine for making falsehoods.
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... a less than perfect meddling in the spiritual world can breed monsters for other people.
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Of course reading and thinking are important but, my God, food is important too.
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The sin of pride may be a small or a great thing in someone's life, and hurt vanity a passing pinprick, or a self-destroying or ever murderous obsession.
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The bereaved cannot communicate with the unbereaved.
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Of course reading and thinking are important but, my God, food is important too. How fortunate we are to be food-consuming animals. Each meal should be a treat and one ought to bless every day which brings with it a good digestion and the precious gift of hunger.
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Probably no adult misery can be compared with a child's despair.
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It is not enough that I succeed, everyone else must fail.
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A middling talent makes for a more serene life.
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Those who hope, by retiring from the world, to earn a holiday from human frailty, in themselves and others, are usually disappointed.
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we are such inward secret creatures, that inwardness the most amazing thing about us, even more amazing than our reason. but we cannot just walk into the cavern and look around. most of what we think we know about our minds is pseudo-knowledge. we are all such shocking poseurs, so good at inflating the importance of what we think we value.
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We defend ourselves by descriptions and tame the world by generalizing.
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A letter is a barrier, a reprieve, a charm against the world, an almost infallible method of acting at a distance.
Iris Murdoch