Every man needs two women: a quiet home-maker, and a thrilling nymph.
- Iris Murdoch
Men, Needs, Man Needs, Thrilling
I daresay anything can be made holy by being sincerely worshipped.
- Iris Murdoch
Holy, Made, Sincerely, Worshipped
Moralistic is not moral. And as for truth - well, it's like brown - it's not in the spectrum. Truth is so generic.
- Iris Murdoch
Truth, Like, Moralistic, Brown
The priesthood is a marriage. People often start by falling in love, and they go on for years without realizing that love must change into some other love which is so unlike it that it can hardly be recognized as love at all.
- Iris Murdoch
Love, Falling, Which, Priesthood
Falling out of love is chiefly a matter of forgetting how charming someone is.
- Iris Murdoch
Love, Moving On, Falling, Chiefly
No love is entirely without worth, even when the frivolous calls to the frivolous and the base to the base.
- Iris Murdoch
Love, No Love, Even, Frivolous
Happiness is a matter of one's most ordinary and everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self.
- Iris Murdoch
Consciousness, Unconcerned, Lively
Love is the difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.
- Iris Murdoch
Love, Other, Than, Love Is
The absolute yearning of one human body for another particular body and its indifference to substitutes is one of life's major mysteries.
- Iris Murdoch
Human Body, Indifference, Substitutes
Anything that consoles is fake.
- Iris Murdoch
Fake, Anything, Consoles
In almost every marriage there is a selfish and an unselfish partner. A pattern is set up and soon becomes inflexible, of one person always making the demands and one person always giving way.
- Iris Murdoch
Marriage, Always, Making, Unselfish
We shall be better prepared for the future if we see how terrible, how doomed the present is.
- Iris Murdoch
Better, See, How, Doomed
Human affairs are not serious, but they have to be taken seriously.
- Iris Murdoch
Serious, Seriously, Taken, Human Affairs
All art is a struggle to be, in a particular sort of way, virtuous.
- Iris Murdoch
Art, Virtuous, Particular, Struggle
I see myself as Rhoda, not Mary Tyler Moore.
- Iris Murdoch
See, Mary Tyler Moore, Moore, Tyler
There is no substitute for the comfort supplied by the utterly taken-for-granted relationship.
- Iris Murdoch
Relationship, Utterly, Supplied
Being good is just a matter of temperament in the end.
- Iris Murdoch
End, Temperament, Being, In The End
Philosophy! Empty thinking by ignorant conceited men who think they can digest without eating!
- Iris Murdoch
Men, Ignorant, Think, Conceited
Falling out of love is very enlightening. For a short while you see the world with new eyes.
- Iris Murdoch
Love, Falling, Very, Love Is
Perhaps when distant people on other planets pick up some wavelength of ours all they hear is a continuous scream.
- Iris Murdoch
Space, Some, Wavelength, Continuous
A bad review is even less important than whether it is raining in Patagonia.
- Iris Murdoch
Important, Bad, Even, Review
Art is the final cunning of the human soul which would rather do anything than face the gods.
- Iris Murdoch
Art, Cunning, Which, Human Soul
He was a sociologist; he had got into an intellectual muddle early on in life and never managed to get out.
- Iris Murdoch
Intellectual, Got, Had, Muddle
In philosophy if you aren't moving at a snail's pace you aren't moving at all.
- Iris Murdoch
Moving, Snail, Pace, Philosophy
We can only learn to love by loving.
- Iris Murdoch
Love, Learn, Loving, To Love
The notion that one will not survive a particular catastrophe is, in general terms, a comfort since it is equivalent to abolishing the catastrophe.
- Iris Murdoch
General, Notion, Equivalent, Catastrophe
Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.
- Iris Murdoch
Luck, Like, Commit, Amazed
People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.
- Iris Murdoch
Nature, Flowers, Think, Such Things
We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality.
- Iris Murdoch
Truth, World, Fantasy, Illusion
Between saying and doing, many a pair of shoes is worn out.
- Iris Murdoch
Wisdom, Doing, Worn, Pair
Perhaps misguided moral passion is better than confused indifference.
- Iris Murdoch
Confused, Better, Perhaps
Only lies and evil come from letting people off.
- Iris Murdoch
Only, Come, Lies, Letting
The cry of equality pulls everyone down.
- Iris Murdoch
Equality, Down, Everyone, Cry
I think being a woman is like being Irish. Everyone says you're important and nice, but you take second place all the same.
- Iris Murdoch
Woman, Think, I Think, Irish
Literature could be said to be a sort of disciplined technique for arousing certain emotions.
- Iris Murdoch
Emotions, Could, Disciplined, Literature
One doesn't have to get anywhere in a marriage. It's not a public conveyance.
- Iris Murdoch
Marriage, Get, Public, Anywhere
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