Quote

We must live by the light of our own self-satisfaction, through that secret vital busy inwardness which is even more remarkable than our reason.

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
Live
Inwardness
Self
Vital
Must
Remarkable
Even
Satisfaction
Busy
Secret
Light
Reason

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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.
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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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They are universal places, like churches, hallowed meeting places of all mankind.
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Bereavement is a darkness impenetrable to the imagination of the unbereaved
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On connecting: Where does one person end and another person begin?
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A middling talent makes for a more serene life.
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For most of us, for almost all of us, truth can be attained, if at all, only in silence. It is in silence that the human spirit touches the divine.
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Possibly, more people kill themselves and others out of hurt vanity than out of envy, jealousy, malice or desire for revenge.
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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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Good writing is full of surprises and novelties, moving in a direction you don't expect.
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Art is brief. (Not in a temporal sense.) [...] Words are for concealment. Art is concealment.
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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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Daytime sleep is a cursed slumber from which one wakes in despair.
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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.
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There is nothing like early promiscuous sex for dispelling life's bright mysterious expectations.
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Language is a machine for making falsehoods.
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We shall be better prepared for the future if we see how terrible, how doomed the present is.
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A death is the most terrible of facts.
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The chief requirement of the good life, is to live without any image of oneself.
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