Iris Murdoch Quotes on Happiness
Iris Murdoch was a 20th-century British philosopher and novelist, the author of 26 novels and several volumes of moral philosophy. This page collects quotes attributed to Iris Murdoch on the topic of happiness, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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Attributed to Iris Murdoch:
“One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats.”
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“He felt neither guilt nor distress at the pleasure with which he was now filled by the proximity of this young creature, and when he discovered in himself even physical symptoms of his inclination he did not take fright, but continued cheerfully and serenely to see Nick whenever the ordinary run of his duties suggested it, congratulating himself upon the newly achieved solidity and rational calm of his spiritual life.”
The Bell (1958) p. 91 -
“People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.”
A Fairly Honourable Defeat (1970); 2001, p. 170. -
“Happiness is a matter of one's most ordinary everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self. To be damned is for one's ordinary everyday mode of consciousness to be unremitting agonising preoccupation with self.”
The Nice and the Good (1968), ch. 22.