Quote

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.

Iris Murdoch

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Childhood
Understood
Bottomless
Probably
Compared
Child
Adult
Littles
Bitter
Little
Misery
Children
Despair
Even
Adults

More quotes by Iris Murdoch

Image
Language is a machine for making falsehoods.
Iris Murdoch
Image
We defend ourselves by descriptions and tame the world by generalizing.
Iris Murdoch
Image
The bereaved cannot communicate with the unbereaved.
Iris Murdoch
Image
People who boast of happy marriages are, I submit, usually self-deceivers, if not actually liars.
Iris Murdoch
Image
Good writing is full of surprises and novelties, moving in a direction you don't expect.
Iris Murdoch
Image
Dogs are very different from cats in that they can be images of human virtue. They are like us.
Iris Murdoch
Image
Art and morality are, with certain provisos…one. Their essence is the same. The essence of both of them is love. Love is the perception of individuals. Love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real. Love, and so art and morals, is the discovery of reality.
Iris Murdoch
Image
Love can't always do work. Sometimes it just has to look into the darkness.
Iris Murdoch
Image
The most essential and fundamental aspect of culture is the study of literature, since this is an education in how to picture and understand human situations.
Iris Murdoch
Image
Every artist is an unhappy lover.
Iris Murdoch
Image
The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart.
Iris Murdoch
Image
The most potent and sacred command which can be laid upon any artist is the command: wait.
Iris Murdoch
Image
All art deals with the absurd and aims at the simple. Good art speaks truth, indeed is truth, perhaps the only truth.
Iris Murdoch
Image
We are all prisoner, but the name of our cure is not freedom
Iris Murdoch
Image
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.
Iris Murdoch
Image
The chief requirement of the good life, is to live without any image of oneself.
Iris Murdoch
Image
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
Image
Probably no adult misery can be compared with a child's despair.
Iris Murdoch
Image
The cry of equality pulls everyone down.
Iris Murdoch
Image
Starting a novel is opening a door on a misty landscape you can still see very little but you can smell the earth and feel the wind blowing.
Iris Murdoch