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It is difficult in life to be good, and difficult in art to portray goodness. Perhaps we don't know much about goodness.

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
Difficult
Art
Much
Good
Life
Portray
Goodness
Perhaps

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The bereaved cannot communicate with the unbereaved.
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We are all prisoner, but the name of our cure is not freedom
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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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You cannot have both truth and what you call civilisation.
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Intense mutual erotic love, love which involves with the flesh all the most refined sexual being of the spirit, which reveals and perhaps even ex nihilo creates spirit as sex, is comparatively rare in this inconvenient world.
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A bad review is even less important than whether it is raining in Patagonia.
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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.
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To be a complete victim may be another source of power.
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Jealousy comes from self-love rather than from true love.
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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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There is no beyond, there is only here, the infinitely small, infinitely great and utterly demanding present.
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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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I see myself as Rhoda, not Mary Tyler Moore.
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Being good is just a matter of temperament in the end.
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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.
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One should go easy on smashing other people's lies. Better to concentrate on one's own.
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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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The notion that one can liberate another soul from captivity is an illusion of the very young.
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Of course men play roles, but women play roles too, blanker ones. They have, in the play of life, fewer good lines.
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Human affairs are not serious, but they have to be taken seriously.
Iris Murdoch