Quotes from William Morris

Oh, manifold is their kindred, and who shall tell them all? There are they that rule o'er men folk, and the stars that rise and fall." Sigurd the Volsung

You think that enough?" said I. "Yes," said he, "and moreover it is all that we can do. If in addition we torture the man, we turn his grief into anger, and the humiliation he would otherwise feel for his wrong-doing is swallowed up by a hope of revenge for our wrong-doing to him.

Vi è stato un tempo nel quale il mistero e la meraviglia dell'artigianato avevano un giusto riconoscimento nel mondo, un tempo nel quale l'immaginazione e la fantasia si mescolavano a tutti gli oggetti prodotti dall'uomo; e in questi giorni ogni artigiano era quel che oggi definiremmo un artista.

Il rimedio è nelle mani degli artigiani, che su queste materie non sono ignoranti come la gente comune, e che non tendono a essere avari e a starsene isolati come i proletari delle manifatture o i mediatori; è a loro che competono l'onore e l'onere di educare il pubblico, ed essi recano in sé i semi dell'ordine e dell'organizzazione che renderanno più facile il loro compito.

Niente può essere un'opera artistica se non è anche utile, vale a dire se non assiste un corpo saldamente controllato dalla mente, o se non diverte, ristora ed eleva una mente in buona salute.

Full soft he lay his love beside; But dark are the days of wintertide.

Tush, man! praise the day when the sun has set.

Love, who changest all, change me nevermore! Love, who changest all, change my sorrow sore!

Je n'accepterai point d'endosser l'habit rouge du soldat ni qu'on m'envoie tirer sur mon ami français, allemand ou arabe dans une querelle dont le sens m'échappe : je me rebellerai plutôt. Je n'accepterai pas non plus de gaspiller mon temps et mon énergie à fabriquer un colifichet dont je sais que seul un imbécile en voudra : je me rebellerai plutôt.

Mais s'ils travaillent en s'appuyant sur la tradition intelligente, leur ouvrage sera l'expression de leur coopération harmonieuse et du plaisir qu'ils y ont pris. Aucune intelligence, même de la plus basse espèce qui soit, n'y a été écrasée ; au contraire, elle a été plutôt subordonnée et utilisée afin que personne, du maître au plus modeste ouvrier, ne puisse s'écrier : c'est mon oeuvre

En résumé, [à toutes les époque], le meilleur artiste restait encore un artisan, le plus humble des artisans était un artiste.

Simplement parce les grandes oeuvres d'art, celles qui envahissent toute la vie, doivent résulter de la coopération harmonieuse entre voisins. Or, un homme riche n'a pas de voisins, mais des rivaux et des parasites.

Telle est la position de l'art de nos jours. Il est sans défense et fragilisé au milieu de l'océan de la brutalité utilitaire.

CHAPTER I: DISCUSSION AND BED

J. N.  Another of them! another of those scarcely articulate foreigners!  This is a most dangerous plot!  Officer, arrest everybody present except the officials.  I will make an example of everybody: I will commit them all. Mr. H. (leaning over to Judge).  I don't see how it can be done, my lord.  Let it alone: there's a Socialist prisoner coming next; you can make him pay for all.

B UT, knowing now that they would have her speak, She threw her wet hair backward from her brow

Once upon a time amidst the mountains and hills and falling streams of a fair land there was a town or thorp in a certain valley.

Whilom, as tells the tale, was a walled cheaping-town hight Utterhay, which was builded in a bight of the land a little off the great highway which went from over the mountains to the sea. The said town was hard on the borders of a wood, which men held to be mighty great, or maybe measureless; though few indeed had entered it, and they that had, brought back tales wild and confused thereof.

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

No pattern should be without some sort of meaning.

My work is the embodiment of dreams in one form or another.

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

Don't think too much of style.

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.