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...If our houses, or clothes, our household furniture and utensils are not works of art, they are either wretched makeshifts, or, what is worse, degrading shams of better things.

William Morris

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William Morris
Age: 62 †
Born: 1834
Born: March 24
Died: 1896
Died: October 3
Wilcumestowe
William M. Morris
Either
Wretched
House
Furniture
Art
Houses
Better
Household
Things
Worse
Clothes
Shams
Works
Utensils
Design
Degrading

More quotes by 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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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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Earth, left silent by the wind of night,Seems shrunken 'neath the gray unmeasured height.
William Morris
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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
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No pattern should be without some sort of meaning.
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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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
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Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.
William Morris
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The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.
William Morris
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Don't think too much of style.
William Morris
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Late February days and now, at last, Might you have thought that Winter's woe was past So fair the sky was and so soft the air.
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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History has remembered the kings and warriors, because they destroyed art has remembered the people, because they created.
William Morris
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Speak not, move not, but listen, the sky is full of gold. No ripple on the river, no stir in field or fold, All gleams but naught doth glisten, but the far-off unseen sea. Forget days past, heart broken, put all memory by! No grief on the green hillside, no pity in the sky, Joy that may not be spoken fills mead and flower and tree.
William Morris
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I do not want art for a few any more than education for a few, or freedom for a few.
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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Between complete socialism and communism there is no difference whatever in my mind.Communism is in fact the completion of socialism when that ceases to be militant and becomes triumphant, it will be communism.
William Morris
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All rooms ought to look as if they were lived in, and to have so to say, a friendly welcome ready for the incomer.
William Morris
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Do not be afraid of large patterns, if properly designed they are more restful to the eye than small ones: on the whole, a pattern where the structure is large and the details much broken up is the most useful...very small rooms, as well as very large ones, look better ornamented with large patterns.
William Morris
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A pattern is either right or wrong...it is no stronger than its weakest point.
William Morris