In almost every marriage there is a selfish and an unselfish partner. A pattern is set up and soon becomes inflexible, of one person always making the demands and one person always giving way. – Iris Murdoch
Falling out of love is chiefly a matter of forgetting how charming someone is. – Iris Murdoch
There is no substitute for the comfort supplied by the utterly taken-for granted relationship. – Iris Murdoch
Happiness is a matter of one’s most ordinary and everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self. – Iris Murdoch
Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men or animals. Some seem to smile; some have a sad expression; some are pensive and diffident; others again are plain, honest and upright, like the broad-faced sunflower and the hollyhock. – Henry Ward Beecher, Star Papers: A Discourse of Flowers