William Morris > Quotes

“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.”
― William Morris

“...I do not want art for a few; any more than education for a few; or freedom for a few... ”
― William Morris

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”
― William Morris

“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.”
― William Morris

“History has remembered the kings and warriors, because they destroyed; art has remembered the people, because they created.”
― William Morris

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

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

“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.”
― William Morris, The Well At The World's End: Volume I

“We are only the trustees for those who come after us.”
― William Morris, William Morris by Himself: Designs and Writings

“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.”
― William Morris, Useful Work versus Useless Toil

“Have nothing in your house you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”
― William Morris

“October

O love, turn from the changing sea and gaze,
Down these grey slopes, upon the year grown old,
A-dying 'mid the autumn-scented haze
That hangeth o'er the hollow in the wold,
Where the wind-bitten ancient elms infold
Grey church, long barn, orchard, and red-roofed stead,
Wrought in dead days for men a long while dead.

Come down, O love; may not our hands still meet,
Since still we live today, forgetting June,
Forgetting May, deeming October sweet? -
- Oh, hearken! hearken! through the afternoon
The grey tower sings a strange old tinkling tune!
Sweet, sweet, and sad, the toiling year's last breath,
To satiate of life, to strive with death.

And we too -will it not be soft and kind,
That rest from life, from patience, and from pain,
That rest from bliss we know not when we find,
That rest from love which ne'er the end can gain?
- Hark! how the tune swells, that erewhile did wane!
Look up, love! -Ah! cling close, and never move!
How can I have enough of life and love?”
― William Morris

“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.”
― William Morris

“Now let us go, love, down the winding stair,
With fingers intertwined...”
― William Morris, The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful"- 1834”
― William Morris

“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.”
― William Morris, The House of the Wolfings