Quotes from William Morris

We shall not be happy unless we live like good animals, unless we enjoy the exercise of the ordinary functions of life: eating, sleeping, loving, walking, running, swimming, riding, sailing.

Artists cannot help themselves; they are driven to create by their nature, but for that nature to truly thrive, we need to preserve the precious habitat in which that beauty can flourish.

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

No man is good enough to be another's master.

I am going your way, so let us go hand in hand. You help me and I'll help you. We shall not be here very long ... so let us help one another while we may.

History has remembered the kings and warriors, because they destroyed; art has remembered the people, because they created.

Had she come all the way for this,To part at last without a kiss?Yea, had she borne the dirt and rainThat her own eyes might see him slainBeside the haystack in the floods?

I was half mad with beauty on that day.

If you cannot learn to love real art at least learn to hate sham art.

Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time,Why should I strive to set the crooked straight?

Well, if this is poetry, it is very easy to write.

Not on one strand are all life's jewels strung.

Love is enough, though the world be awaning.

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.

It took me years to understand that words are often as important as experience, because words make experience last.

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.

Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.

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

History has remembered the kings and warriors, because they destroyed; art has remembered the people, because they created.

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.

Apart from the desire to produce beautiful things, the leading passion of my life has been and is hatred of modern civilization.

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.

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.