Top 95 Quotes & Sayings by William Morris

Happy as we are, times may alter; we may be bitten with some impulse towards change, and many things may seem too wonderful for us to resist, too exciting not to catch at, if we do not know that they are but phases of what has been before and withal ruinous, deceitful, and sordid.

It is right and necessary that all should have work to do which shall be worth doing and be of itself pleasant to do, and which should be done under such conditions as would make it neither over-wearisome nor over-anxious.

I am going, if I can, to be an architect, and I am too old already, and there is no time to lose.

I don't remember being taught to read, and by the time I was seven years old, I had read a very great many books, good, bad, and indifferent.

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

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

We are living in a epoch where there is combat between commercialism, or the system of reckless waste, and communism, or the system of neighbourly common sense.

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.

To do nothing but grumble and not to act - that is throwing away one's life.

Give me love and work - these two only.

We shall not be happy unless we live like good animals, unless we enjoy the exercise of the ordinary functions of life: eating, sleeping, loving, walking, running, swimming, riding, sailing.

Apart from the desire to produce beautiful things, the leading passion of my life has been and is hatred of modern civilization.

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

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

How often it consoles me to think of barbarism once more flooding the world, and real feelings and passions, however rudimentary, taking the place of our wretched hypocrisies.

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.

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.

I can't enter into politico-social subjects with any interest, for on the whole, I see that things are in a muddle, and I have no power or vocation to set them right in ever so little a degree.

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

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

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

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

I want a real revolution, a real change in society: society, a great organic mass of well-regulated forces used for the bringing-about a happy life for all.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Speak but one word to me.

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 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.

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.

Love is enough: though the world be a-waning, And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining.

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

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.'

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

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 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.

All rooms ought to look as if they were lived in, and to have so to say, a friendly welcome ready for the incomer.

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

Free men must live simple lives and have simple pleasures.

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

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.

No pattern should be without some sort of meaning.

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.

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

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

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.

...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.

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.

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

Don't think too much of style.

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.