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William Morris Quotes

1st Viscount Nuffield, Birth: 10-10-1877, Death: 3-10-1896 William Morris Quotes
1.
Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.
William Morris

2.
The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.
William Morris

3.
Art made by the people for the people, as a joy to the maker and the user.
William Morris

4.
I am going your way, so let us go hand in hand. You help me and I'll help you. We shall not be here very long ... so let us help one another while we may.
William Morris

5.
I do not want art for a few any more than education for a few, or freedom for a few.
William Morris

6.
There is no excuse for doing anything which is not strikingly beautiful.
William Morris

7.
So long as the system of competition in the production and exchange of the means of life goes on, the degradation of the arts will go on; and if that system is to last for ever, then art is doomed, and will surely die; that is to say, civilization will die.
William Morris

8.
Speak not, move not, but listen, the sky is full of gold. No ripple on the river, no stir in field or fold, All gleams but naught doth glisten, but the far-off unseen sea. Forget days past, heart broken, put all memory by! No grief on the green hillside, no pity in the sky, Joy that may not be spoken fills mead and flower and tree.
William Morris

Quote Topics by William Morris: Art Men Design Thinking Wall Life Beautiful Mean Flower Hands Eye Memories Garden Two House Real Matter Pain Imagination Winter Patterns Night Simplicity Hate Giving Sweet Lying Enough Song Air
9.
The past is not dead, it is living in us, and will be alive in the future which we are now helping to make.
William Morris

10.
Nothing should be made by man's labour which is not worth making, or which must be made by labour degrading to the makers.
William Morris

11.
I have said as much as that the aim of art was to destroy the curse of labour by making work the pleasurable satisfaction of our impulse towards energy, and giving to that energy hope of producing something worth its exercise.
William Morris

12.
History has remembered the kings and warriors, because they destroyed; art has remembered the people, because they created.
William Morris

13.
No pattern should be without some sort of meaning.
William Morris

14.
Simplicity of life, even the barest, is not a misery, but the very foundation of refinement.
William Morris

15.
A man at work, making something which he feels will exist because he is working at it and wills it, is exercising the energies of his mind and soul as well as of his body. Memory and imagination help him as he works.
William Morris

16.
Artists cannot help themselves; they are driven to create by their nature, but for that nature to truly thrive, we need to preserve the precious habitat in which that beauty can flourish.
William Morris

17.
You may hang your walls with tapestry insread of whitewash or paper; or you may cover them with mosaic; or have them frescoed by a great painter: all this is not luxury, if it be done for beauty's sake, and not for show: it does not break our golden rule: Have nothing in your houses which you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.
William Morris

18.
Beauty, which is what is meant by art, using the word in its widest sense, is, I contend, no mere accident to human life, which people can take or leave as they choose, but a positive necessity of life.
William Morris

19.
What is an artist but a workman who is determined that, whatever else happens, his work shall be excellent?
William Morris

20.
Love is Enough Love is enough: though the world be a-waning, And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining, Though the skies be too dark for dim eyes to discover The gold-cups and daisies fair blooming thereunder, Though the hills be held shadows, and the sea a dark wonder, And this day draw a veil over all deeds passed over, Yet their hands shall not tremble, their feet shall not falter: The void shall not weary, the fear shall not alter These lips and these eyes of the loved and the lover.
William Morris

21.
With the arrogance of youth, I determined to do no less than to transform the world with Beauty. If I have succeeded in some small way, if only in one small corner of the world, amongst the men and women I love, then I shall count myself blessed, and blessed, and blessed, and the work goes on.
William Morris

22.
What I mean by Socialism is a condition of society in which there should be neither rich nor poor, neither master nor master's man, neither idle nor overworked, neither brain­slack brain workers, nor heart­sick hand workers, in a word, in which all men would be living in equality of condition, and would manage their affairs unwastefully, and with the full consciousness that harm to one would mean harm to all - the realisation at last of the meaning of the word 'commonwealth.'
William Morris

23.
The wind is not helpless for any man's need, Nor falleth the rain but for thistle and weed.
William Morris

24.
Give me love and work - these two only.
William Morris

25.
Do not be afraid of large patterns, if properly designed they are more restful to the eye than small ones: on the whole, a pattern where the structure is large and the details much broken up is the most useful...very small rooms, as well as very large ones, look better ornamented with large patterns.
William Morris

26.
My work is the embodiment of dreams in one form or another.
William Morris

27.
One man with an idea in his head is in danger of being considered a madman: two men with the same idea in common may be foolish, but can hardly be mad; ten men sharing an idea begin to act, a hundred draw attention as fanatics, a thousand and society begins to tremble, a hundred thousand and there is war abroad, and the cause has victories tangible and real; and why only a hundred thousand? Why not a hundred million and peace upon the earth? You and I who agree together, it is we who have to answer that question.
William Morris

28.
I half wish that I had not been born with a sense of romance and beauty in this accursed age.
William Morris

29.
No man is good enough to be another's master.
William Morris

30.
So with this Earthly Paradise it is, If ye will read aright, and pardon me, Who strive to build a shadowy isle of bliss Midmost the beating of the steely sea.
William Morris

31.
That talk of inspiration is sheer nonsense; there is no such thing. It is a mere matter of craftsmanship.
William Morris

32.
A good way to rid one's self of a sense of discomfort is to do something. That uneasy, dissatisfied feeling is actual force vibrating out of order; it may be turned to practical account by giving proper expression to its creative character.
William Morris

33.
...If our houses, or clothes, our household furniture and utensils are not works of art, they are either wretched makeshifts, or, what is worse, degrading shams of better things.
William Morris

34.
If i were asked to say what is at once the most important production of Art and the thing most to be longed for, I should answer, A beautiful House.
William Morris

35.
I love art, and I love history, but it is living art and living history that I love. It is in the interest of living art and living history that I oppose so-called restoration. What history can there be in a building bedaubed with ornament, which cannot at the best be anything but a hopeless and lifeless imitation of the hope and vigor of the earlier world?
William Morris

36.
We are only the trustees for those who come after us.
William Morris

37.
O thrush, your song is passing sweet, But never a song that you have sung Is half so sweet as thrushes sang When my dear love and I were young.
William Morris

38.
Don't think too much of style.
William Morris

39.
I know a little garden close Set thick with lily and red rose, Where I would wander if I might From dewy dawn to dewy night. And have one with me wandering.
William Morris

40.
Late February days; and now, at last, Might you have thought that Winter's woe was past; So fair the sky was and so soft the air.
William Morris

41.
If we feel the least degradation in being amorous, or merry or hungry, or sleepy, we are so far bad animals & miserable men.
William Morris

42.
And the deeds that ye do upon this earth, it is for fellowship's sake that ye do them.
William Morris

43.
If a chap can't compose an epic poem while he's weaving tapestry, he had better shut up, he'll never do any good at all.
William Morris

44.
Not on one strand are all life's jewels strung.
William Morris

45.
It is the childlike part of us that produces works of the imagination. When we were children time passed so slow with us that we seemed to have time for everything.
William Morris

46.
As to the garden, it seems to me its chief fruit is-blackbirds.
William Morris

47.
Forsooth, brethren, fellowship is heaven and lack of fellowship is hell; fellowship is life and lack of fellowship is death; and the deeds that ye do upon the earth, it is for fellowship's sake that ye do them.
William Morris

48.
Ornamental pattern work, to be raised above the contempt of reasonable men, must possess three qualities: beauty, imagination and order.
William Morris

49.
Large or small, [the garden] should be orderly and rich. It should be well fenced from the outside world. It should by no means imitate either the willfulness or the wildness of nature, but should look like a thing never to be seen except near the house. It should, in fact, look like part of the house.
William Morris

50.
Simplicity of life, even the barest, is not a misery, but the very foundation of refinement; a sanded floor and whitewashed walls and the green trees, and flowery meads, and living waters outside; or a grimy palace amid the same with a regiment of housemaids always working to smear the dirt together so that it may be unnoticed; which, think you, is the most refined, the most fit for a gentleman of those two dwellings?
William Morris