Iris Murdoch Quotes

Opium teaches only one thing, which is that aside from physical suffering, there is nothing real.

Many people would rather have fine words and false hopes than the truth which is unacceptable.

Borrowed illusions are better than none.

Disillusion is the last illusion.

False beliefs can be every bit as consoling as true ones, right up until the moment of disillusionment.

Drink promises you everything, but gives nothing.

I think you guys are going to have to come up with a lot of wonderful new lies, or people just aren't going to want to go on living.

When you're not used to comfort and good things to eat, you're intoxicated by them in no time. Truth's only too pleased to leave you. Very little is ever needed for Truth to let go of you. And after all, you're not really very keen to keep hold of it.

There is something truly restorative, finally comforting, in coming to the end of an illusion - a false hope.

Rob the average man of his life-illusion, and you rob him of his happiness at the same stroke.

Better the hard truth, I say, than the comforting fantasy.

Every real object must cease to be what it seemed, and none could ever be what the whole soul desired.

The experiences which drugs induce are as far removed from Reality as is a mirage, from water. No matter how much you pursue the mirage, you will never quench your thirst, and the search for Truth through drugs must end in disillusionment.

We can't believe what we believe to be untrue, and we can't love what we believe to be unreal.

The more you act the further you get away from the truth.

Men worship the shows of great men; the most disbelieve that there is any reality of great men to worship.

All is but illusion and disaster.

Truth is more of a stranger than fiction.

It's better to have the faith to embrace reality with all its pain than to cling to the false comfort of a painless fantasy.

But you can wake a man only if he is really asleep. No effort that you make will produce any effect upon him if he is merely pretending sleep.

A false enchantment can all too easily last a lifetime.

Truth is a naked and open daylight, that does not show the masques, and mummeries, and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle-lights. . . A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure

Illusions are hazardous, and so are disillusions.

What is false creates taste, and reinforces itself by knowingly eliminating any possible reference to the authentic. And what is genuine is reconstructed as quickly as possible, to resemble the false.

In the beginning there was faith - which is childish; trust - which is vain; and illusion - which is dangerous.