Iris Murdoch Quotes

The victim who is able to articulate the situation of the victim has ceased to be a victim: he or she has become a threat.

I think Christine and Chad are on the opposite extremes of the spectrum. Christine is a model victim, and Chad is a model perpetrator, and Howard is closer to the middle.

Bullies are always cowards at heart and may be credited with a pretty safe instinct in scenting their prey.

Too often, we get attention and sympathy by being a victim. If we're invested in someone being our villain, we must love being the victim. We have to let go of both characters in the story.

History, sociology, economics, psychology et al. confirmed Joyce's view of Everyman as victim.

Those who are beaten become beaters.

The only way to stop gaslighting is to shine the light of reality onto a situation. That makes it imperative for the perpetrator to keep victims in the dark.

No one can make you a victim but yourself.

No privileged order ever did see the wrongs of its own victims.

You may never get to touch the Master, but you can tickle his creatures.

Since the social victim has been oppressed by society, he comes to feel that his individual life will be improved more by changes in society than by his own initiative. Without realizing it, he makes society rather than himself the agent of change. The power he finds in his victimization may lead him to collective action against society, but it also encourages passivity within the sphere of his personal life.

One uses power by grasping it lightly. To grasp too strongly is to be taken over by power, and thus to become its victim.

a kite is a victim you are sure of. you love it because it pulls.

If you act like a victim, you are likely to be treated as one.

Forgiveness is created by the restitution of the abuser; of the wrongdoer. It is not something to be squeeeeeezed out of the victim in a further act of conscience-corrupting abuse.

Baby," she says in a harsh whisper, "in this world, lots of people will try to grind you down. They need you to be small so they can be big. You let them think whatever they want, but you make sure you get yours. You get yours.

The weak may be joked out of anything but their weakness.

I hope you are never victims, but I hope you have no power over other people.

Anybody, at any time, may equally find himself victim or executioner.

When the times are a crucible, when the air is full of crisis, those who are the most themselves are the victims.

As the victim, you offer the gift of your forgiving to the perpetrator who may or may not appropriate the gift but it has been offered and thereby it liberates the victim.

Pride in their port, defiance in their eye, I see the lords of humankind pass by.

Books are only made so that they may point the way to a higher life; but no good results unless the path is trodden with unflinching steps!

Those characters wherein fear predominates over hope may apprehend too much from...instances of irregularity. They may conclude too hastily that nature has formed man insusceptible of any other government than that of force, a conclusion not founded in truth nor experience.

It gets so tiring, this strong-picking-on-the-weak stuff. It was the story of my life -literally- and it seemed to be a big part of the outside world too. I was sick of it, sick of guys like these, stupid and bullying.