William Morris Quotes
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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.
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It is for him that is lonely or in prison to dream of fellowship, but for him that is of a fellowship to do and not to dream.
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Slayer of the winter, art thou here again? O welcome, thou that bring'st the summer nigh! The bitter wind makes not the victory vain. Nor will we mock thee for thy faint blue sky.
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Nothing should be made by man's labour which is not worth making, or which must be made by labour degrading to the makers.
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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.
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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.
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A world made to be lost, - A bitter life 'twixt pain and nothing tost.
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All rooms ought to look as if they were lived in, and to have so to say, a friendly welcome ready for the incomer.
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Earth, left silent by the wind of night,Seems shrunken 'neath the gray unmeasured height.
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Not on one strand are all life's jewels strung.
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Forgetfulness of grief I yet may gain;In some wise may come ending to my pain;It may be yet the Gods will have me glad!Yet, Love, I would that thee and pain I had!
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By God! I will not tell you more to-day, Judge any way you will - what matters it?
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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?
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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?
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A pattern is either right or wrong...it is no stronger than its weakest point.
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Death have we hated, knowing not what it meant; Life we have loved, through green leaf and through sere, Though still the less we knew of its intent.
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I half wish that I had not been born with a sense of romance and beauty in this accursed age.
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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.
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Whiles in the early Winter eve We pass amid the gathering night Some homestead that we had to leave Years past; and see its candles bright Shine in the room beside the door Where we were merry years agone But now must never enter more, As still the dark road drives us on. E'en so the world of men may turn At even of some hurried day And see the ancient glimmer burn Across the waste that hath no way; Then with that faint light in its eyes A while I bid it linger near And nurse in wavering memories The bitter-sweet of days that were.
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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.
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If you cannot learn to love real art, at least learn to hate sham art and reject it.
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Another thing much too commonly seen, is an aberration of the human mind which otherwise I should have been ashamed to warn you of. It is technically called carpet-gardening. Need I explain it further? I had rather not, for when I think of it, even when I am quite alone, I blush with shame at the thought.
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What is an artist but a workman who is determined that, whatever else happens, his work shall be excellent?
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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.