Dogs are very different from cats in that they can be images of human virtue. They are like us.
Iris MurdochIt is difficult in life to be good, and difficult in art to portray goodness. Perhaps we don't know much about goodness.
Iris MurdochEducation doesn’t make you happy. Nor does freedom. We don’t become happy just because we’re free – if we are. Or because we’ve been educated – if we have. But because education may be the means by which we realize we are happy. It opens our eyes, our ears, tells us where delights are lurking, convinces us that there is only one freedom of any importance whatsoever, that of the mind, and gives us the assurance – the confidence – to walk the path our mind, our educated mind, offers.
Iris Murdoch