William Morris

"Wert thou more fickle than the restless sea, Still should I love thee, knowing thee for such."

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

"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."

"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."

"What is this, the sound and rumour? What is this that all men hear, Like the wind in hollow valleys when the storm is drawing near, Like the rolling on of ocean in the eventide of fear? Tis the people marching on."

"The greatest foe to art is luxury, art cannot live in its atmosphere."

"He betrayed the trust reposed in him & used his military & administrative capacity for the purpose of bringing the Soudanese under the subjection of a vile tyranny. To make a hero of such a man is a direct attack on public morality."

"...what I mean by Socialism is a condition of society in which there should be neither rich nor poor, neither master nor masters man, neither idle nor overworked, neither brain­slack brain workers, nor heart­sick hand workers, in a word, in which all men would be living in equality of condition, and would manage their affairs unwastefully, and with the full consciousness that harm to one would mean harm to all—the realisation at last of the meaning of the word commonwealth."

"One of these cloths is heaven, and one is hell, Now choose one cloth for ever; which they be, I will not tell you, you must somehow tell Of your own strength and mightiness."

"The British Empire is not a thing to love or to be proud of, but a disgrace and a nuisance, as a domination compounded of fraud, injustice and violence to be scorned by all honest men wherever possible."

"But lo, the old inn, and the lights, and the fire, And the fiddlers old tune and the shuffling of feet; Soon for us shall be quiet and rest and desire, And to-morrows uprising to deeds shall be sweet."

"The majesty That from mans soul looks through his eager eyes."