William Morris Quotes

Quando infine saremo sollevati da tutto ciò, nel contesto di una rinnovata semplicità di vita, avremo tempo per pensare al nostro lavoro, questo fedele compagno quotidiano, che nessuno si azzarderà più a definire una maledizione, perché certamente allora ne saremo felici, ognuno al suo posto, senz'alcuna invidia reciproca; e nessuno sarà costretto a essere il servo di un altro uomo, mentre ciascuno rifiuterà con sdegno di essere il padrone di un altro. E a quel punto gli uomini saranno senz'altro felici nel loro lavoro, e quella felicità promuoverà per certo un'arte decorativa nobile e popolare. Quell'arte renderà le nostre strade belle come i boschi, tali da suscitare, come la vista delle montagne, un sentimento di elevazione; sarà un piacere, e un ristoro per lo spirito, non un peso, giungere in città dall'aperta campagna; l'abitazione di ogni uomo sarà bela e dignitosa, tale da rasserenarne l'animo e assisterlo nel suo lavoro. Tutte le opere umane in mezzo alle quali viviamo e che maneggiamo saranno in armonia con la natura, sensate e belle, e tuttavia sempre semplici e stimolanti, non puerili né tali da infiacchirci; perché come dai nostri edifici pubblici non mancherà alcuna bellezza o splendore che rientri nelle capacità della mente e della mano dell'uomo, così nelle abitazioni private non vi sarà alcun segno di spreco, di pompa o di arroganza, e ognuno godrà della sua parte del meglio.

Fear and Hope — those are the names of the two great passions which rule the race of man, and with which revolutionists have to deal; to give hope to the many oppressed and fear to the few oppressors, that is our business; if we do the first and give hope to the many, the few must be frightened by their hope; otherwise we do not want to frighten them; it is not revenge we want for poor people, but happiness; indeed, what revenge can be taken for all the thousands of years of the sufferings of the poor?

Vi è stato un tempo nel quale il mistero e la meraviglia dell'artigianato avevano un giusto riconoscimento nel mondo, un tempo nel quale l'immaginazione e la fantasia si mescolavano a tutti gli oggetti prodotti dall'uomo; e in questi giorni ogni artigiano era quel che oggi definiremmo un artista.

To happy folk All heaviest words no more of meaning bear Than far-off bells saddening the Summer air.

Que cherchons-nous à accomplir ? Changer l’organisation sociale sur laquelle repose la prodigieuse structure de l’organisation de la civilisation, qui s’est construite au cours de siècles de conflits, au sein de systèmes vieillissants ou moribonds, conflits dont l’issue fut la victoire de la civilisation moderne sur les conditions naturelles de la vie

When we can get beyond that smoky world, there, out in the country we may still see the works of our fathers yet alive amidst the very nature they were wrought into, and of which they are so completely a part: for there indeed if anywhere, in the English country, in the days when people cared about such things, was there a full sympathy between the works of man, and the land they were made for: — the land is a little land; too much shut up within the narrow seas, as it seems, to have much space for swelling into hugeness: there are no great wastes overwhelming in their dreariness, no great solitudes of forests, no terrible untrodden mountain-walls: all is measured, mingled, varied, gliding easily one thing into another: little rivers, little plains, swelling, speedily- changing uplands, all beset with handsome orderly trees; little hills, little mountains, netted over with the walls of sheep- walks: all is little; yet not foolish and blank, but serious rather, and abundant of meaning for such as choose to seek it: it is neither prison nor palace, but a decent home.

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.

Folk say, a wizard to a northern king At Christmas-tide such wondrous things did show, That through one window men beheld the spring, And through another saw the summer glow, And through a third the fruited vines a-row, While still, unheard, but in its wonted way, Piped the drear wind of that December day. So with this Earthly Paradise it is, If ye will read aright, and pardon me, Who strive to build a shadowy isle of bliss Midmost the beating of the steely sea, Where tossed about all hearts of men must be; Whose ravening monsters mighty men shall slay, Not the poor singer of an empty day.

Now such an one for daughter Creon had As maketh wise men fools and young men mad.

Whilom, as tells the tale, was a walled cheaping-town hight Utterhay, which was builded in a bight of the land a little off the great highway which went from over the mountains to the sea. The said town was hard on the borders of a wood, which men held to be mighty great, or maybe measureless; though few indeed had entered it, and they that had, brought back tales wild and confused thereof.

"Master Clement, how far dost thou make it to Higham-on-the-Way?" "A matter of forty miles," said the Chapman; "because, as thou wottest, if ye ride south from hence, ye shall presently bring your nose up against the big downs, and must needs climb them at once; and when ye are at the top of Bear Hill, and look south away ye shall see nought but downs on downs with never a road to call a road, and never a castle, or church, or homestead: nought but some shepherd's hut; or at the most the little house of a holy man with a little chapel thereby in some swelly of the chalk, where the water hath trickled into a pool; for otherwise the place is waterless." Therewith he took a long pull at the tankard by his side, and went on:

Of Heaven or Hell I have no power to sing, I cannot ease the burden of your fears, Or make quick-coming death a little thing, Or bring again the pleasure of past years, Nor for my words shall ye forget your tears, Or hope again for aught that I can say, The idle singer of an empty day.

He trembled with his head hung low.

B UT, knowing now that they would have her speak,
She threw her wet hair backward from her brow,

Mastership hath many shifts whereby it striveth to keep itself alive in the world. And now hear a marvel: whereas thou sayest these two times that out of one man ye may get but one man's work, in days to come one man shall do the work of a hundred men — yea, of a thousand or more: and this is the shift of mastership that shall make many masters and many rich men.