Top 95 Quotes & Sayings by William Morris - Page 2

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Between complete socialism and communism there is no difference whatever in my mind.Communism is in fact the completion of socialism; when that ceases to be militant and becomes triumphant, it will be communism.

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.

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

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

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!

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!

Earth, left silent by the wind of night,Seems shrunken 'neath the gray unmeasured height.

There was a knight came riding by In early spring, when the roads were dry; And he heard that lady sing at the noon, Two red roses across the moon.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

By God! I will not tell you more to-day, Judge any way you will - what matters it?

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."