We wanted to take this blog to share with you our favourite William Morris quotes. It’s difficult to read through William Morris’s work without wanting to quote him. You can’t go on Pinterest these days without seeing some of his most famous quotes. Or walk into an interior design shop anywhere without hearing:

“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” – 1880, ‘The Beauty of Life‘ a lecture before the Birmingham Society of Arts and School of Design.

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“There is no square mile of earth’s inhabitable surface that is not beautiful in it’s own way, if we men will only abstain from wilfully destroying that beauty.”

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“I cannot paint you but I love you” – Morris to his love Jane Burden

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“The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all details of daily life.”

“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.” – Quoted in: William Morris & Red House (2005) p.65

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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, Love is Enough (1872)

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“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.” – The Decorative Arts 1877.

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“It is right and necessary that all men should have work to do which shall be worth doing, and be of itself pleasant to do: and which should be done under such conditions as would make it neither over-wearisome nor over-anxious.” – Art and Socialism 1884

“Nothing should be made by man’s labour which is not worth making: or which must be made by labour degrading to the makers.” – Art and Socialism 1884

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All quotes credited to William Morris, of course!