William Morris was a British textile designer, poet, novelist, translator, and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He was a major contributor to the revival of traditional British textile arts and methods of production. His literary contributions helped to establish the modern fantasy genre, while he played a significant role propagating the early socialist movement in Britain. Morris is recognized as one of the most significant cultural figures of Victorian Britain. He was best known in his lifetime as a poet, although he posthumously became better known for his designs. The William Morris Society founded in 1955 is devoted to his legacy, while multiple biographies and studies of his work have been published. Many of the buildings associated with his life are open to visitors, much of his work can be found in art galleries and museums, and his designs are still in production. May his quotes inspire you to take action so that you may live your dreams.
1. “History has remembered the kings and warriors because they destroyed; art has remembered the people because they created.” William Morris
2. “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
3. “A good way to rid oneself 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
4. “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
5. “We are only the trustees for those who come after us.” William Morris
6. “Wherever nature works, there will be beauty.” William Morris
7. “Nothing useless can be truly beautiful.” William Morris
8. “My work is the embodiment of dreams in one form or another.” William Morris
9. “Nothing should be made by man’s labor which is not worth making, or which must be made by labor degrading to the makers.” William Morris
10. “The true secret of happiness lies in the taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.” William Morris
11. “Not on one strand are all life’s jewels strung.” William Morris
12. “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
13. “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
14. “Let tomorrow cross its own rivers.” William Morris
15. “Everything made by man’s hands has a form, which must be either beautiful or ugly; beautiful if it is in accord with Nature, and helps her; ugly if it is discordant with nature, and thwarts her; it cannot be indifferent.” William Morris
16. “Love makes clear the eyes that else would never see: Love makes blind the eyes to all but me and thee.” William Morris
17. “If others can see it as I have seen it, then it may be called a vision rather than a dream.” William Morris
18. “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.” William Morris
19. “Boundless risk must pay for boundless gain.” William Morris
20. “The past is not dead, it is living in us, and will be alive in the future which we are now helping to make.” William Morris
21. “Free men must live simple lives and have simple pleasures.” William Morris
22. “Love gives every gift whereby we long to live: Love takes every gift, and nothing back doth give.” William Morris
23. “The books I would like to print are the books I love to read and keep.” William Morris
24. “When a rich man is hurt his wail goeth heavens high and none may say he heareth not.” William Morris
25. “Give me love and work – these two only.” William Morris
26. “The heart desires, the hand refrains. The soul attains.” William Morris
27. “How can you care about the image of a landscape, when you show by your deeds that you don’t care for the landscape itself?” William Morris
28. “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
29. “Art is man’s expression of his joy in labor.” William Morris
30. “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
31. “I have said as much as that the aim of art was to destroy the curse of labor 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
32. “Apart from the desire to produce beautiful things, the leading passion of my life has been and is hatred of modern civilization.” William Morris
33. “Simplicity of life, even the barest, is not a misery, but the very foundation of refinement.” William Morris
34. “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.” William Morris
35. “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.” William Morris
