Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch was an Irish-British philosopher and novelist who wrote in English, born in Dublin on July 15, 1919.
Murdoch pursued her education at Somerville College and Newnham College, laying the academic foundation for a career that spanned both fiction and philosophy. She held citizenship in both Ireland and the United Kingdom, a dual identity that reflected her Dublin origins alongside her deep ties to British intellectual life. For her contributions to literature and thought, she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. She died in Oxford on February 8, 1999.
Her notable works in fiction include Under the Net and The Sea, the Sea, two novels that illustrate the range of her literary output across several decades. Both titles represent her sustained engagement with the novel as a form, and her work consistently moved between the concerns of academic philosophy and the demands of narrative prose. These twin commitments to philosophical inquiry and to fiction written in English remain the defining characteristics of her career.
Quotes by Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch's insights on:
The sin of pride may be a small or a great thing in someone's life, and hurt vanity a passing pinprick, or a self-destroying or even murderous obsession.
The theatre is certainly a place for learning about the brevity of human glory: oh all those wonderful glittering absolutely vanished pantomime.
Falling out of love is very enlightening; for a short while you see the world with new eyes.
There is no substitute for the comfort supplied by the utterly taken-for-granted relationship.
The sin of pride may be a small or a great thing in someone's life and hurt vanity a passing pinprick, or a self-destroying or ever-murderous obsession.
I think being a woman is like being Irish... Everyone says you're important and nice, but you take second place all the same.
Falling out of love is very enlightening.For a short while you see the world with new eyes.
The whole extraordinary business was over. And I was back where I belonged, where my childhood had condemned me to be, alone, out in the cold without a coat.