Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Iris Murdoch

Quote by Iris Murdoch

“We are not isolated free choosers, monarchs of all we survey, but benighted creatures sunk in a reality whose nature we are constantly and overwhelmingly tempted to deform by fantasy.”

Quote by Iris Murdoch

Book:Against Dryness
Create image

Work

Against Dryness

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch

Iris Murdoch was an Irish-Canadian philosopher and author, born on July 15, 1919, in Dublin, Ireland, and passed away on February 8, 1999. She is celebrated for her philosophical novels that intertwine moral and ethical dilemmas with complex narratives. Murdoch's work has left a lasting impact on the literary world, particularly in the latter half of the 20th century. more

You May Also Like

“I can't believe you. Are you under the impression that the Second Foundation is doing this for us? That they are some sort of idealists? Isn't it clear to you from your knowledge of politics—that they are doing it for themselves? We are the cutting edge. We are the engine, the force. We labor and sweat and bleed and weep. They merely control—adjusting an amplifier here, closing a contact there, and doing it all with ease and without risk to themselves. Then, when it is all done and when, after a thousand years of heaving and straining, we have set up the Second Galactic Empire, the people of the Second Foundation will move in as the ruling elite.”

Human NatureControlEmpireIsaac Asimov
Book:Foundation's Edge
Create image

“Is there any answer to the proposition that those who have had the best opportunities will probably be our best guides? Is there any answer to the argument that those who have breathed clean air had better decide for those who have breathed foul? As far as I know, there is only one answer, and that answer is Christianity. Only the Christian Church can offer any rational objection to a complete confidence in the rich. For she has maintained from the beginning that the danger was not in man's environment, but in man. Further, she has maintained that if we come to talk of a dangerous environment, the most dangerous environment of all is the commodious environment.”

Human Nature
Book:Orthodoxy
Create image

“Entertainers are seen by people from all walks of life as some sort of allknowing prophet - if they say, a certain health drink is good, the masses would most naively embrace that health drink in their life - if they say, a certain watch or perfume or handbag is the symbol of elegance, the masses would most blindly run after it - and if they run for office, the masses would most stupidly vote for them, without actually knowing their psychological capacity to run a people and maintain peace.”

PsychologyHuman NatureBrainy QuotesHumanity And SocietySocial IssuesEvolutionary PsychologySocial PsychologyNeuropsychologyAnti IntellectualismAnti Intellectual
Book:Citizens of Peace: Beyond the Savagery of Sovereignty
Create image

“Sometimes I think my brain opened as far as it could go when I was about seventeen, and its doors have been just stuck there ever since. And now they're ossifying and collecting cobwebs, and things are spilling in, swirling around for a bit, and then flying out again. And someday they'll start to swing slowly shut, and I'll be left in the dark with nothing but a few rustling fragments of thoughts that get thinner and weaker every time I use them. Like tea leaves. And sometimes I think I can do anything.”

Human NatureHuman ConditionReadersBookworms
Book:The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep
Create image