William Morris Quotes

The books I would like to print are the books I love to read and keep.

If others can see it as I have seen it, then it may be called a vision rather than a dream.

Talk of inspiration is sheer nonsense; there is to such thing. It is mere a matter of craftsmanship.

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!

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.

Speak but one word to me.

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.

Mastership hath many shifts whereby it striveth to keep itself alive in the world. And now hear a marvel: whereas thou sayest these two times that out of one man ye may get but one man's work, in days to come one man shall do the work of a hundred men - yea, of a thousand or more: and this is the shift of mastership that shall make many masters and many rich men.

The greatest foe to art is luxury, art cannot live in its atmosphere.

Architecture would lead us to all the arts, as it did with earlier mean: but if we despise it and take no note of how we are housed, the other arts will have a hard time of it indeed.

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.

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?

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.

In Prison Wearily, drearily, Half the day long, Flap the great banners High over the stone; Strangely and eerily Sounds the wind's song, Bending the banner-poles. While, all alone, Watching the loophole's spark, Lie I, with life all dark, Feet tethered, hands fettered Fast to the stone, The grim walls, square lettered With prisoned men's groan. Still strain the banner-poles Through the wind's song, Westward the banner rolls Over my wrong.

A world made to be lost, -A bitter life 'twixt pain and nothing tost.

If you cannot learn to love real art, at least learn to hate sham art and reject it.

It took me years to understand that words are often as important as experience, because words make experience last.

I am accursed and beguiled; and I wander round and round in a tangle that I may never escape from. I am not far from deeming that this is a land of dreams made for my beguiling. Or has the earth become so full of lies, that there is no room amidst them for a true man to stand upon his feet and go his ways?

Don't think too much of style.

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

How can you care about the image of a landscape, when you show by your deeds that you don't care for the landscape itself?

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.

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.

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.

I can see myself still myself all along the way I have gone. - Lady Abundance

There is no single policy to which one can point and say - this built the Morris business. I should think I must have made not less than one thousand decisions in each of the last ten years. The success of a business is the result of the proportion of right decisions by the executive in charge.

I pondered all these things, and how men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name.

Do not be deceived by the outside appearance of order in our plutocratic society. It fares with it as it does with the older norms of war, that there is an outside look of quite wonderful order about it; how neat and comforting the steady march of the regiment; how quiet and respectable the sergeants look; how clean the polished cannon ... the looks of adjutant and sergeant as innocent-looking as may be, nay, the very orders for destruction and plunder are given with a quiet precision which seems the very token of a good conscience; this is the mask that lies before the ruined cornfield and the burning cottage, and mangled bodies, the untimely death of worthy men, the desolated home.

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

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.

To happy folkAll heaviest words no more of meaning bearThan far-off bells saddening the Summer air.

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.

Free men must live simple lives and have simple pleasures.

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

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

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.

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

A pattern is either right or wrong ... it is no stronger than its weakest point.

The heart desires, the hand refrains. The Godhead fires, the soul attains.

From out the throng and stress of lies, from out the painful noise of sighs, one voice of comfort seems to rise: It is the meaner part that dies.

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

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.

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.

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.

No pattern should be without some sort of meaning.

When Socialism comes, it may be in such a form that we won't like it.

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

Thus then lived this folk in much plenty and ease of life, though not delicately nor desiring things out of measure. They wrought with their hands and wearied themselves; and they rested from their toil and feasted and were merry: to-morrow was not a burden to them, nor yesterday a thing which they would fain forget: life shamed them not, nor did death make them afraid.

I think the thing that impressed me is (AT&T CEO Michael) Armstrong's strategic vision and the fact that he's got John Malone (TCI's chairman) to go along. There's a real commitment to build a new AT&T.

...if these hours be dark, as indeed in many ways they are, at least do not let us sit deedless, like fools and fine gentlemen, thinking the common toil not good enough for us, and beaten by the muddle; but rather let us work like good fellows trying by some dim candle-light to set our workshop ready against to-morrow's daylight...

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.

Now let us go, love, down the winding stair,
With fingers intertwined ...

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?

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 you want a golden rule that will fit everything, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.

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.

Yea, I have looked, and seen November there; The changeless seal of change it seemed to be, Fair death of things that, living once, were fair; Bright sign of loneliness too great for me, Strange image of the dread eternity, In whose void patience how can these have part, These outstretched feverish hands, this restless heart?

Count on, rest not, for hope is dead.

I cannot suppose there is anybody here who would think it either a good life, or an amusing one, to sit with one's hands before one doing nothing - to live like a gentleman, as fools call it.

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.

The reward of labour is life. Is that not enough?