Quotes from William Morris

Nothing should be made by man's labour which is not worth making, or which must be made by labour degrading to the makers.

We are only the trustees for those who come after us.

Nothing useless can be truly beautiful.

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

If a chap can't compose an epic poem while he's weaving tapestry, he had better shut up, he'll never do any good at all.

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

If others can see it as I have seen it, then it may be called a vision rather than a dream.

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.

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...

Now let us go, love, down the winding stair, With fingers intertwined...

Let tomorrow cross its own rivers.

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.

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?

Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful"- 1834

Let some word reach my ears and touch my heart

The past is not dead, it is living in us, and will be alive in the future which we are now helping to make.

Love makes clear the eyes that else would never see: "Love makes blind the eyes to all but me and thee.

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

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

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

We are living in a epoch where there is combat between commercialism, or the system of reckless waste, and communism, or the system of neighbourly common sense.

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

I can't enter into politico-social subjects with any interest, for on the whole, I see that things are in a muddle, and I have no power or vocation to set them right in ever so little a degree.

The past is not dead, it is living in us, and will be alive in the future which we are now helping to make.