What a test that is: more than devotion, admiration, passion. If you long and long for someone’s company you love them.
Iris MurdochRead
The theatre is certainly a place for learning about the brevity of human glory: oh all those wonderful glittering absolutely vanished pantomime! Now I shall abjure magic and become a hermit : put myself in a situation where I can honestly say that I have nothing else to do but to learn to be good.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the transient nature of fame and emphasizes the importance of self-improvement over seeking glory.
Iris Murdoch's quote contemplates the fleetingness of human achievements and the superficiality of glory depicted in theatre. She suggests that instead of chasing after ephemeral success, one should focus on personal growth and moral development, choosing a path of solitude to reflect and learn how to be good in a deeper, more meaningful way.
Themes
TheatreGloryLearningSelf-ImprovementSolitude
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared in a discussion about the importance of inner growth over external recognition.
More from Iris Murdoch
All quotes →The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart.
Iris MurdochRead
Man's creative struggle, his search for wisdom and truth, is a love story.
Iris MurdochRead
All art deals with the absurd and aims at the simple. Good art speaks truth, indeed is truth, perhaps the only truth.
Iris MurdochRead
A bad review is even less important than whether it is raining in Patagonia.
Iris MurdochRead
Perhaps when distant people on other planets pick up some wavelength of ours all they hear is a continuous scream.
Iris MurdochRead
Similar quotes
A sense of life meaning ensues but cannot be deliberately pursued: life meaning is always a derivative phenomenon that materializes when we have transcended ourselves, when we have forgotten ourselves and become absorbed in someone (or something) outside ourselves
Irvin D. YalomRead
I saw grief drinking a cup of sorrow and called out, 'It tastes sweet, does it not?' 'You've caught me,' grief answered, 'and you've ruined my business. How can I sell sorrow, when you know it's a blessing?
RumiRead
Yes, know thyself: in great concerns or small, be this thy care, for this, my friend, is all.
JuvenalRead
It takes solitude under the stars, for us to be reminded of our eternal origin and our far destiny.
Archibald RutledgeRead
The only feeling that anyone can have about an event he does not experience is the feeling aroused by his mental image of that event ... For it is clear enough that under certain conditions men respond as powerfully to fictions as they do to realities.
Walter LippmannRead
The flesh is the surface of the unknown.
Victor HugoRead