A Quote by William Morris

Apart from the desire to produce beautiful things, the leading passion of my life has been and is hatred of modern civilization. — © William Morris
Apart from the desire to produce beautiful things, the leading passion of my life has been and is hatred of modern civilization.
...the materialism of modern civilization is paradoxically founded on a hatred of materiality, a goal-oriented desire to obliterate all natural limits through technology, imposing an abstract grid over nature.
The human heart as modern civilization has made it is more prone to hatred than to friendship. And it is prone to hatred because it is dissatisfied.
Babies who have not yet been taught to speak any language are the only race of the earth, the race of man: all the rest is pretence, what we call civilization, hatred, fear, desire for strength.
For 500 years the West patented six killer applications that set it apart. The first to download them was Japan. Over the last century, one Asian country after another has downloaded these killer apps- competition, modern science, the rule of law and private property rights, modern medicine, the consumer society and the work ethic. Those six things are the secret sauce of Western civilization.
To realize life in the abstract as noble or beautiful or humane, to set it forth so with radiance upon it, that is civilization in the arts. Shakespeare is the chief modern example of this supreme faculty of mankind.
Apart from their other characteristics, the outstanding thing about China's 600 million people is that they are “poor and blank”. This may seem a bad thing, but in reality it is a good thing. Poverty gives rise to the desire for changes, the desire for action and the desire for revolution. On a blank sheet of paper free from any mark, the freshest and most beautiful characters can be written; the freshest and most beautiful pictures can be painted.
Do you know that every great thing in the history of art and every beautiful thing in life is actually what you call nasty or has been caused by feelings that you would call nasty? By passion, by love, by hatred, by truth. Do you know that?
The passion of hatred is so long lived and so obstinate a malady that the surest sign of death in a sick person is their desire for reconciliation.
For me, and for thousands with similar inclinations, the most important passion of life is the overpowering desire to escape periodically from the clutches of a mechanistic civilization. To us the enjoyment of solitude, complete independence, and the beauty of undefiled panoramas is absolutely essential to happiness.
The beginning as well as the end of all his thoughts was hatred of human law, that hatred which, if it be not checked in its growth by some providential event, becomes, in a certain time, hatred of society, then hatred of the human race, and then hatred of creation, and reveals itself by a vague and incessant desire to injure some living being, it matters not who.
A passion is a contranatural movement of the soul or an irrational love, or an blindfold hatred toward any material thing, or because of it: for example, for food, or for women, or for riches, or for worldly glory, or any other sensible thing; or for the sake of such things, as in a senseless hatred for someone on account of the things mentioned above.
It isn't very nice to admit, but domestic violence has its uses. So raw and unleashed, it tears away the veil of civilization that comes between us as much as it makes life possible. A poor substitute for the sort of passion we like to extol perhaps, but real love shares more in common with hatred and rage than it does with geniality or politeness.
Not everything in man's life is summed up in the problem of food. Anyone who thinks that a civilization can be founded on bread alone makes a great mistake. No matter how much bread there is, it cannot produce a man: it can only nourish him. Life exists before food. Man's life comes from the very origin of life. Therefore civilization does not follow the forms of production. All social life follows the action of life.
Our civilization is first and foremost a civilization of means; in the reality of modern life, the means, it would seem, are more important than the ends.
Its not about passion. Passion is something that we tend to overemphasize, that we certainly place too much importance on. Passion ebbs and flows. To me, it's about desire. If you have constant, unwavering desire to be a cook, then u'll be a great cook.
The world is full of suffering. Birth is suffering, decre- pitude is suffering, sickness and death are sufferings. To face a man of hatred is suffering, to be separated from a beloved one is suffering, to be vainly struggling to satisfy one's needs is suffering. In fact, life that is not free from desire and passion is always involved with suffering.
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