William Morris Quotes

Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

The past is not dead, it is living in us, and will be alive in the future which we are now helping to make.

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

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.

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

No pattern should be without some sort of meaning.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.'

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

Give me love and work - these two only.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

...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.

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.

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?

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

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.

Don't think too much of style.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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?