Quotes by William Morris
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.
No man is good enough to be another's master.
History has remembered the kings and warriors, because they destroyed; art has remembered the people, because they created.
Give me love and work - these two only.
It took me years to understand that words are often as important as experience, because words make experience last.
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.
I do not want art for a few any more than education for a few, or freedom for a few.
The reward of labour is life. Is that not enough?
Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Of rich men it telleth, and strange is the story how they have, and they hanker, and grip far and wide; And they live and they die, and the earth and its glory has been but a burden they scarce might abide.
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.
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?
Of Heaven of Hell I have no power to sing, I cannot ease the burden of your fears,...
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. Not only his own thoughts, but the thoughts of the men of past ages guide his hands; and, as part of the human race, he creates. If we work thus we shall be men, and our days will be happy and eventful.
