98 quotes
If others can see it as I have seen it, then it may be called a vision rather than a dream.
News from Nowhere (1890)
No roaming now, my wars are passed away,
No long dull days devoid of happiness,
When such a love my yearning heart shall bless.
The Earthly Paradise (1868)
Pass by me, and hearken, and think of me not!
Love is Enough (1872)
Pass by me, I hearken, and think of you not!
Love is Enough (1872)
We will stick to our word, which means a change of the basis of society … it may encourage some people, and will mean to them at least not a fear, but a hope.
Till again shall the change come, and words your lips say not
Your hearts make all plain in the best wise they would
And the world ye thought waning is glorious and good...
Love is Enough (1872)
But the kissed lips of Love and fair life everlasting!
Cry out, for one heedeth, who leadeth you home!
Love is Enough (1872)
To happy folk
All heaviest words no more of meaning bear
Than far-off bells saddening the Summer air.
The Earthly Paradise (1868)
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.
Art Under Plutocracy (1883)
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)
The idle singer of an empty day.
The Earthly Paradise (1868)
Beauty, which is what is meant by art, using the word in its widest sense, is, I contend, no mere accident to human life, which people can take or leave as they choose, but a positive necessity of life.
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.
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.
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.
It is the longest night in all the year,
Near on the day when the Lord Christ was born;
Six hours ago I came and sat down here,
And ponder'd sadly, wearied and forlorn.
The Defence of Guenevere, and Other Poems (1858)
Morn shall meet noon
While the flower-stems yet move,
Though the wind dieth soon
And the clouds fade above.
Love is Enough (1872)
Forsooth, brethren, fellowship is heaven and lack of fellowship is hell; fellowship is life and lack of fellowship is death; and the deeds that ye do upon the earth, it is for fellowship's sake that ye do them.
Across the empty garden-beds,
When the Sword went out to sea.
The Defence of Guenevere, and Other Poems (1858)
O servant of the high God, Galahad!
The Defence of Guenevere, and Other Poems (1858)