Quote#Freedom
The South Sea Islander must leave his canoe-carving, his sweet rest,…
Quote byWilliam Morris · 1834–1896
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: "How We Live and How We Might Live", Commonweal, 1887. Quoted in Gillian Naylor, William Morris by Himself: Designs and Writings (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co, 1988).
English (original)
The South Sea Islander must leave his canoe-carving, his sweet rest, and his graceful dances, and become the slave of a slave: trousers, shoddy, rum, missionary, and fatal disease — he must swallow all this civilization in a lump, and neither himself nor we can help him now till social order displaces the hideous tyranny of gambling that has ruined him.
— William Morris
More from William Morris
Now such an one for daughter Creon had As maketh wise men fools and young men mad.
O thrush, your song is passing sweet But never a song that you have sung, Is half so sweet as thrushes sang When my dear Love and I were young.
The majesty That from man's soul looks through his eager eyes.
Wert thou more fickle than the restless sea, Still should I love thee, knowing thee for such.
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.
From out the throng and stress of lies, From out the painful noise of sighs, One voice of comfort seems to rise: "It is the meaner part that dies."