WIST Quotations

Morris, William -- “The Art of the People,” speech, Birmingham Society of Arts (1879-02-19)

Dave — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 20:32:56 +0000

I have never been in any rich man’s house which would not have looked the better for having a bonfire made outside of it of nine-tenths of all that it held.

William Morris (1834–1896) British textile designer, writer, socialist activist
“The Art of the People,” speech, Birmingham Society of Arts (1879-02-19)

Morris, William -- “The Beauty of Life,” lecture, Birmingham Society of Arts and School of Design (19 Feb 1880)

Dave — Wed, 29 Jan 2020 21:11:31 +0000

Our golden rule: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.

William Morris (1834–1896) British textile designer, writer, socialist activist
“The Beauty of Life,” lecture, Birmingham Society of Arts and School of Design (19 Feb 1880)

Morris, William -- “The Beauty of Life,” lecture, Birmingham Society of Arts and School of Design (19 Feb 1880)

Dave — Wed, 05 Feb 2020 18:14:44 +0000

That the beauty of life is a thing of no moment, I suppose few people would venture to assert, and yet most civilized people act as if it were of none, and in so doing are wronging themselves and those that are to come after them; for that beauty, which is what is meant by art, using the word in its widest sense, is, I contend, no mere accident to human life, which people can take or leave as they choose, but a positive necessity of life, if we are to live as nature meant us to; that is, unless we are content to be less than men.

William Morris (1834–1896) British textile designer, writer, socialist activist
“The Beauty of Life,” lecture, Birmingham Society of Arts and School of Design (19 Feb 1880)

Morris, William -- “The Beauty of Life,” lecture, Birmingham Society of Arts and School of Design (19 Feb 1880)

Dave — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 16:34:47 +0000

The greatest foe to art is luxury, art cannot live in its atmosphere.

William Morris (1834–1896) British textile designer, writer, socialist activist
“The Beauty of Life,” lecture, Birmingham Society of Arts and School of Design (19 Feb 1880)

Morris, William -- “The Decorative Arts: Their Relation to Modern Life and Progress,” Lecture (4 Dec 1877)

Dave — Wed, 26 Feb 2020 22:43:57 +0000

To give people pleasure in the things they must perforce use, that is one great office of decoration; to give people pleasure in the things they must perforce make, that is the other use of it.

William Morris (1834–1896) British textile designer, writer, socialist activist
“The Decorative Arts: Their Relation to Modern Life and Progress,” Lecture (4 Dec 1877)

Morris' first public lecture. Later published as "The Lesser Arts" in Hopes and Fears for Art (1882).

Morris, William -- “The Prospects of Architecture in Civilization,” speech, London (10 Mar 1880)

Dave — Wed, 19 Feb 2020 18:41:51 +0000

Simplicity of life, even the barest, is not a misery, but the very foundation of refinement: a sanded floor and whitewashed walls, and the green trees, and flowery meads, and living waters outside; or a grimy palace amid the smoke with a regiment of housemaids always working to smear the dirt together so that it may be unnoticed; which, think you, is the most refined, the most fit for a gentleman of those two dwellings?

William Morris (1834–1896) British textile designer, writer, socialist activist
“The Prospects of Architecture in Civilization,” speech, London (10 Mar 1880)

Morris, William -- “Useful Work versus Useless Toil,” lecture (1884)

Dave — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 15:34:12 +0000

Yet I think that to all living things there is a pleasure in the exercise of their energies, and that even beasts rejoice in being lithe and swift and strong. But 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 a part of the human race, he creates. If we work thus we shall be men, and our days will be happy and eventful.

William Morris (1834–1896) British textile designer, writer, socialist activist
“Useful Work versus Useless Toil,” lecture (1884)

Printed in Signs of Change (1888).

Morris, William -- Art and Socialism (1884)

Dave — Wed, 04 Mar 2020 18:01:47 +0000

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

William Morris (1834–1896) British textile designer, writer, socialist activist
Art and Socialism (1884)

Morris, William -- Signs of Change, ch. 6 (1888)

Dave — Wed, 16 Nov 2022 15:28:58 +0000

Worthy work carries with it the hope of pleasure in rest, the hope of the pleasure in our using what it makes, and the hope of pleasure in our daily creative skill. All other work but this is worthless; it is slaves’ work — mere toiling to live, that we may live to toil.

William Morris (1834–1896) British textile designer, writer, socialist activist
Signs of Change, ch. 6 (1888)