I love art, and I love history, but it is living art and living history that I love.... It is in the interest of living art and living history that I oppose so-called restoration. What history can there be in a building bedaubed with ornament, which cannot at the best be anything but a hopeless and lifeless imitation of the hope and vigour of the earlier world?

(William Morris (1834-1896), British artist, writer, printer. Lecture, 1882. "The History of Pattern-Designing," vol. 22, The Collected Works of William Morris (1910-1915).)

Had she come all the way for this,
To part at last without a kiss?
Yea, had she borne the dirt and rain
That her own eyes might see him slain
Beside the haystack in the floods?

(William Morris (1834-1896), British poet. The Haystack in the Floods (l. 1-5). . . Oxford Book of Narrative Verse, The. Iona Opie and Peter Opie, eds. (1983) Oxford University Press.)

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.

(William Morris (1834-1896), British poet. The Earthly Paradise (l. 5-7). . . Oxford Book of Nineteenth-Century English Verse, The. John Hayward, ed. (1964; reprinted, with corrections, 1965) Oxford University Press.)

Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time,
Why should I strive to set the crooked straight?
Let it suffice me that my murmuring rhyme
Beats with light wing against the ivory gate,

(William Morris (1834-1896), British poet. The Earthly Paradise (l. 22-25). . . Oxford Book of Nineteenth-Century English Verse, The. John Hayward, ed. (1964; reprinted, with corrections, 1965) Oxford University Press.)

If you want a golden rule that will fit everything, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.

(William Morris (1834-1896), British artist, writer, printer. Lecture, 1877. "The Decorative Arts: Their Relation to Modern Life and Progress," publ. As "The Lesser Arts" in Hopes and Fears for Art (1882). Morris's first public lecture.)

Of Heaven of 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,

(William Morris (1834-1896), British poet. The Earthly Paradise (l. 1-4). . . Oxford Book of Nineteenth-Century English Verse, The. John Hayward, ed. (1964; reprinted, with corrections, 1965) Oxford University Press.)

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 same 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 artist, writer, printer. "The Lesser Arts," Hopes and Fears for Art (1882). Morris's first public lecture, "The Decorative Arts: Their Relation to Modern Life and Progress.")

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 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 artist, writer, printer. "Useful Work Versus Useless Toil," Signs of Change (1888).)

The wind's on the wold
And the night is a-cold,
And Thames runs chill
'Twixt mead and hill.
But kind and dear
Is the old house here
And my heart is warm
Midst winter's harm.

(William Morris (1834-1896), British poet. Inscription for an Old Bed (l. 1-8). . . Oxford Book of English Verse, The, 1250-1918. Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. (New ed., rev. and enl., 1939) Oxford University Press.)

Pray but one prayer for me 'twixt thy closed lips,
Think but one thought of me up in the stars.

(William Morris (1834-1896), British poet. Summer Dawn (l. 1-2). . . New Oxford Book of English Verse, The, 1250-1950. Helen Gardner, ed. (1972) Oxford University Press.)