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Human affairs are not serious, but they have to be taken seriously.

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
Seriously
Serious
Literature
Taken
Human
Humans
Seriousness
Affairs
Affair

More quotes by Iris Murdoch

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The most interesting things are always happening behind one.
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Every artist is an unhappy lover.
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We are such inward secret creatures, that inwardness is the most amazing thing about us, even more amazing than our reason.
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Only love has clear vision. Hatred has cloudy vision. When we hate we know not what we do.
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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.
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The bottomless bitter misery of childhood: how little even now it is understood. Probably no adult misery can be compared with a child's despair.
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Every man needs two women: a quiet home-maker, and a thrilling nymph.
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Real worship involves waiting.
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The bereaved cannot communicate with the unbereaved.
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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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We defend ourselves by descriptions and tame the world by generalizing.
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A bad review is even less important than whether it is raining in Patagonia.
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The most potent and sacred command which can be laid upon any artist is the command: wait.
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Art and psychoanalysis give shape and meaning to life and that is why we adore them, but life as it is lived has no shape and meaning.
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Music relates sound and time and so pictures the ultimate edges of human commmunications.
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to be understood is not a human right. Even to understand oneself is not a human right.
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They are universal places, like churches, hallowed meeting places of all mankind.
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Love can't always do work. Sometimes it just has to look into the darkness.
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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.
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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.
Iris Murdoch