Muriel Spark Quotes

Quite early on, and certainly since I started writing, I found that philosophical questions occupied me more than any other kind. I hadn't really thought of them as being philosophical questions, but one rapidly comes to an understanding that philosophy's only really about two questions: 'What is true?' and 'What is good?'

If you look after truth and goodness, beauty looks after herself.

If you look after goodness and truth, beauty will take care of itself.

Goodness shapes our will, and truth shapes our understanding.

I'm very passionate about philosophy and religion.

What is beautiful is good, and who is good will soon be beautiful.

That which is striking and beautiful is not always good, but that which is good is always beautiful.

I do not want to suggest that you have to be religious to be moral.

You can't do without philosophy, since everything has its hidden meaning which we must know.

The good is the beautiful.

People must have righteous principals in the first, and then they will not fail to perform virtuous actions.

Virtue is the fount whence honour springs.

And one of the elders of the city , said , speak to us of good and evil. And he answered : You are good in countless ways , and you are not evil when you are not good .

Beauty is the radiance of truth, and the frangrance of goodness.

My cares and my inquiries are for decency and truth, and in this I am wholly occupied.

All the devils respect virtue.

The good is always beautiful, the beautiful is good!

When "Do no Evil" has been understood, Then learn the harder, braver rule, "Do Good.

You want beauty,' said Hercules Poirot. 'Beauty at any price. For me, it is truth. I want always truth.

Philosophy has no end in view save truth; faith looks for nothing but obedience and piety.

What is the real relation between happiness and goodness? It is only within a few generations that men have found courage to say that there is none.

Morality is truth in full bloom.

Morality must always precede and accompany religion, and yet religion is much more than morality.

Beauty is part of the finished language by which goodness speaks.

The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living are goodness, beauty, and truth. To make a goal of comfort or happiness has never appealed to me; a system of ethics built on this basis would be sufficient only for a herd of cattle.