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

William Morris

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William Morris
Age: 62 †
Born: 1834
Born: March 24
Died: 1896
Died: October 3
Wilcumestowe
William M. Morris
Beautiful
Leading
Things
Apart
Life
Hatred
Civilization
Produce
Modern
Passion
Desire

More quotes by William Morris

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I know a little garden close Set thick with lily and red rose, Where I would wander if I might From dewy dawn to dewy night. And have one with me wandering.
William Morris
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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.
William Morris
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To happy folkAll heaviest words no more of meaning bearThan far-off bells saddening the Summer air.
William Morris
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Yea, I have looked, and seen November there The changeless seal of change it seemed to be, Fair death of things that, living once, were fair Bright sign of loneliness too great for me, Strange image of the dread eternity, In whose void patience how can these have part, These outstretched feverish hands, this restless heart?
William Morris
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As to the garden, it seems to me its chief fruit is-blackbirds.
William Morris
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If there is a reason for keeping the wall very quiet, choose a pattern that works all over without pronounced lines...Put very succinctly, architectural effect depends upon a nice balance of horizontal, vertical and oblique. No rules can say how much of each so nothing can really take the place of feeling and good judgement.
William Morris
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Simplicity of life, even the barest, is not a misery, but the very foundation of refinement.
William Morris
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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.
William Morris
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Architecture would lead us to all the arts, as it did with earlier mean: but if we despise it and take no note of how we are housed, the other arts will have a hard time of it indeed.
William Morris
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The reward of labour is life. Is that not enough?
William Morris
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Free men must live simple lives and have simple pleasures.
William Morris
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Death have we hated, knowing not what it meant Life we have loved, through green leaf and through sere, Though still the less we knew of its intent.
William Morris
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If you cannot learn to love real art, at least learn to hate sham art and reject it.
William Morris
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The wind is not helpless for any man's need, Nor falleth the rain but for thistle and weed.
William Morris
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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
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Speak but one word to me.
William Morris
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I half wish that I had not been born with a sense of romance and beauty in this accursed age.
William Morris
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Love is enough: though the world be a-waning, And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining.
William Morris
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There is no single policy to which one can point and say - this built the Morris business. I should think I must have made not less than one thousand decisions in each of the last ten years. The success of a business is the result of the proportion of right decisions by the executive in charge.
William Morris
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From out the throng and stress of lies, From out the painful noise of sighs, One voice of comfort seems to rise: It is the meaner part that dies.
William Morris