William Morris Quotes

127 Sourced Quotes

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

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
Folk say, a wizard to a northern king
At Christmas-tide such wondrous things did show,
That through one window men beheld the spring,
And through another saw the summer glow,
And through a third the fruited vines a-row,
While still, unheard, but in its wonted way,
Piped the drear wind of that December day.
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,
Where tossed about all hearts of men must be;
Whose ravening monsters mighty men shall slay,
Not the poor singer of an empty day.

William Morris
What is this, the sound and rumour? What is this that all men hear,
Like the wind in hollow valleys when the storm is drawing near,
Like the rolling on of ocean in the eventide of fear?
'Tis the people marching on.

William Morris
The wanderer trembled when he saw all this,
Because he deemed by magic it was wrought;
Yet in his heart a longing for some bliss
Whereof the hard and changing world knows nought,
Arose and urged him on, and dimmed the thought
That there perchance some devil lurked to slay
The heedless wanderer from the light of day

William Morris
It is right and necessary that all men 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.

William Morris
Love is enough: it grew up without heeding
In the days when ye knew not its name nor its measure,
And its leaflets untrodden by the light feet of pleasure
Had no boast of the blossom, no sign of the seeding,
As the morning and evening passed over its treasure.

William Morris
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.

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

William Morris
Love is enough: have no thought for tomorrow
If ye lie down this even in rest from your pain,
Ye who have paid for your bliss with great sorrow...

William Morris
Soon there will be nothing left except the lying dreams of history, the miserable wreckage of our museums and picture-galleries, and the carefully guarded interiors of our aesthetic drawing-rooms, unreal and foolish, fitting witnesses of the life of corruption that goes on there, so pinched and meagre and cowardly, with its concealment and ignoring, rather than restraint of, natural longings; which does not forbid the greedy indulgence in them if it can but be decently hidden.

William Morris
Ye know not how void is your hope and your living:
Depart with your helping lest yet ye undo me!
Ye know not that at nightfall she draweth near to me,
There is soft speech between us and words of forgiving
Till in dead of the midnight her kisses thrill through me.
— Pass by me and harken, and waken me not!

William Morris
Till again shall the change come, and words your lips say not
Your hearts make all plain in the best wise they would
And the world ye thought waning is glorious and good...

William Morris
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.

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

William Morris
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.

William Morris
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.

William Morris
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.

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

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

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

William Morris
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.

William Morris
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.

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

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

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

William Morris
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.

William Morris
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.

William Morris
Rest here awhile, not yet the eve is still, The bees are wandering yet, and you may hear The barley mowers on the trenched hill, The sheep-bells, and the restless changing weir, All little sounds made musical and clear Beneath the sky that burning August gives...

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

William Morris