William Morris Quotes
-
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?
-
Art made by the people for the people, as a joy to the maker and the user.
-
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.
-
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?
-
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.
-
Apart from the desire to produce beautiful things, the leading passion of my life has been and is hatred of modern civilization.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
The heart desires, the hand refrains. The Godhead fires, the soul attains.
-
No man is good enough to be another's master.
-
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.
-
I do not want art for a few any more than education for a few, or freedom for a few.
-
It has become an article of the creed of modern morality that all labour is good in itself -- a convenient belief to those who live on the labour of others. But as to those on whom they live, I recommend them not to take it on trust, but to look into the matter a little deeper.
-
Ornamental pattern work, to be raised above the contempt of reasonable men, must possess three qualities: beauty, imagination and order.
-
So I say, if you cannot learn to love real art; at least learn to hate sham art and reject it. It is not because the wretched thing is so ugly and silly and useless that I ask you to cast it from you; it is much more because these are but the outward symbols of the poison that lies within them; look through them and see all that has gone to their fashioning, and you will see how vain labour, and sorrow, and disgrace have been their companions from the first-and all this for trifles that no man really needs!
-
...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.
-
The reward of labour is life. Is that not enough?
-
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.
-
History has remembered the kings and warriors, because they destroyed; art has remembered the people, because they created.
-
If there is a reason for keeping the wall very quiet, choose a pattern that works all over without pronounced lines...Put very succinctly, architectural effect depends upon a nice balance of horizontal, vertical and oblique. No rules can say how much of each; so nothing can really take the place of feeling and good judgement.
-
Free men must live simple lives and have simple pleasures.
-
Speak but one word to me.