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William Morris

 (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, novelist, translator, and socialist activist associated with the British.

Quotes

 * If you want a golden rule that will fit everybody, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.
 * "The Beauty of Life," a lecture before the Birmingham Society of Arts and School of Design (19 February 1880), later published in Hopes and Fears for Art: Five Lectures Delivered in Birmingham, London, and Nottingham, 1878 - 1881 (1882).

 * 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 Beauty of Life (1880).

 * The greatest foe to art is luxury, art cannot live in its atmosphere.
 * The Beauty of Life (1880).

 * 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 smoke 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? So I say, if you cannot learn to love real art; at least learn to hate sham art and reject it. It is not because the wretched thing is so ugly and silly and useless that I ask you to cast it from you; it is much more because these are but the outward symbols of the poison that lies within them; look through them and see all that has gone to their fashioning, and you will see how vain labour, and sorrow, and disgrace have been their companions from the first — and all this for trifles that no man really needs!
 * Speech, London (10 March 1880)

 * 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?
 * "The History of Pattern-Designing" lecture (1882) The Collected Works of William Morris (1910 - 1915) Vol. 22

 * 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)

 * What shall I say concerning its mastery of and its waste of mechanical power, its commonwealth so poor, its enemies of the commonwealth so rich, its stupendous organization — for the misery of life! Its contempt of simple pleasures which everyone could enjoy but for its folly? Its eyeless vulgarity which has destroyed art, the one certain solace of labour? All this I felt then as now, but I did not know why it was so. The hope of the past times was gone, the struggles of mankind for many ages had produced nothing but this sordid, aimless, ugly confusion.
 * Why I Am A Socialist (1884)

 * ...what I mean by Socialism is a condition of society in which there should be neither rich nor poor, neither master nor master's 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.
 * Why I Am A Socialist (1884)

 * On the fall of Chartism, the Liberal party—which as an engine of progress was a party without principles or definition, but has been used as a thoroughly adequate expression of English middle-class hypocrisy, cowardice, and short-sightedness—engrossed the whole of the political progressive movement in England, and dragged the working classes along with it, blind as they were to their own interests and the solidarity of labour.
 * Socialism: Its Growth & Outcome, co-authored with E. Belfort Bax (1893), pp. 182-183

 * 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.
 * As quoted in William Morris & Red House (2005) by Jan Marsh, p. 65.

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

 * Wert thou more fickle than the restless sea, Still should I love thee, knowing thee for such.
 * Life and Death of Jason, Book ix, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * The majesty That from man's soul looks through his eager eyes.
 * Life and Death of Jason, Book xiii, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * Now such an one for daughter Creon had As maketh wise men fools and young men mad.
 * Life and Death of Jason, Book xvii, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * 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.
 * Other Days, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

 * 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."
 * "Comfort".

The Earthly Paradise (1868-70)

 * Masters, I have to tell a tale of woe, A tale of folly and of wasted life, Hope against hope, the bitter dregs of strife, Ending, where all things end, in death at last.
 * Introductory verse.

 * I too Will go, remembering what I said to you, When any land, the first to which we came Seemed that we sought, and set your hearts aflame, And all seemed won to you: but still I think, Perchance years hence, the fount of life to drink, Unless by some ill chance I first am slain. But boundless risk must pay for boundless gain.
 * "Prologue : The Wanderers"; the last line here may be related to far older expressions such as: "Naught venture, naught have" by Thomas Tusser.

 * Slayer of the Winter, art thou here again? O welcome, thou that bring'st the Summer nigh! The bitter wind makes not thy victory vain, Nor will we mock thee for thy faint blue sky.
 * "March".

 * Rejoice, lest pleasureless ye die. Within a little time must ye go by. Stretch forth your open hands, and while ye live Take all] the [[gifts that Death and Life may give!
 * "March".

 * Forgetfulness of grief I yet may gain; In some wise may come ending to my pain; It may be yet the Gods will have me glad! Yet, Love, I would that thee and pain I had!
 * "The Death of Paris".

 * Earth, left silent by the wind of night, Seems shrunken 'neath the gray unmeasured height.
 * "December".

 * Late February days; and now, at last, Might you have thought that Winter's woe was past; So fair the sky was and so soft the air.
 * "February".

 * A world made to be lost, — A bitter life 'twixt pain and nothing tost.
 * "The Hill of Venus".

 * To happy folk All heaviest words no more of meaning bear Than far-off bells saddening the Summer air.
 * "The Hill of Venus".

Apology

 * Of Heaven or 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, 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.

 * The heavy trouble, the bewildering care That weighs us down who live and earn our bread, These idle verses have no power to bear; So let em sing of names rememberèd, Because they, living not, can ne'er be dead, Or long time take their memory quite away From us poor singers of an empty day.

 * 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, Telling a tale not too importunate To those who in the sleepy region stay, Lulled by the singer of an empty day.

 * Folk say, a wizard to a northern king At Christmas-tide such wondrous things did show, That through one window men beheld the spring, And through another saw the summer glow, And through a third the fruited vines a-row, While still, unheard, but in its wonted way, Piped the drear wind of that December day. So with this Earthly Paradise it is, If ye will read aright, and pardon me, Who strive to build a shadowy isle of bliss Midmost the beating of the steely sea, Where tossed about all hearts of men must be; Whose ravening monsters mighty men shall slay, Not the poor singer of an empty day.

The Lady of the Land

 * It happened once, some men of Italy Midst the Greek Islands went a sea-roving, And much good fortune had they on the sea: Of many a man they had the ransoming, And many a chain they gat and goodly thing; And midst their voyage to an isle they came, Whereof my story keepeth not the name.

 * One was there who left all his friends behind; Who going inland ever more and more, And being left quite alone, at last did find A lonely valley sheltered from the wind, Wherein, amidst an ancient cypress wood, A long-deserted ruined castle stood.

 * Noble the house was, nor seemed built for war, But rather like the work of other days, When men, in better peace than now they are, Had leisure on the world around to gaze, And noted well the past times' changing ways; And fair with sculptured stories it was wrought, By lapse of time unto dim ruin brought.

 * But taking note of these things, at the last The mariner beneath the gateway passed. And there a lovely cloistered court he found, A fountain in the mist o'erthrown and dry, And in the cloister briers twining round The slender shafts; the wondrous imagery Outworn by more than many years gone by; Because the country people, in their fear Of wizardry, had wrought destruction here, And piteously these fair things had been maimed; There stood great Jove, lacking his head of might; Here was the archer, swift Apollo, lamed; The shapely limbs of Venus hid from sight By weeds and shards; Diana's ankles light Bound with the cable of some coasting ship; And rusty nails through Helen's maddening lip.

 * And there he saw a door within the wall, Well-hinged, close shut; nor was there in that place Another on its hinges, therefore he Stood there and pondered for a little space And thought: "Perchance some marvel I shall see, For surely here some dweller there must be, Because this door seems whole and new and sound, While nought but ruin I can see around".

 * No pillager or wrecker had been there; It seemed that time had passed on otherwhere, Nor laid a finger on this hidden place Rich with the wealth of some forgotten race.

 * The wanderer trembled when he saw all this, Because he deemed by magic it was wrought; Yet in his heart a longing for some bliss Whereof the hard and changing world knows nought, Arose and urged him on, and dimmed the thought That there perchance some devil lurked to slay The heedless wanderer from the light of day

 * Upon the floor uncounted medals lay Like things of little value; here and there Stood golden caldrons, that might well outweigh The biggest midst an emperor's copper-ware, And golden cups were set on tables fair, Themselves of gold; and in all hollow things Were stored great gems, worthy the crowns of kings.

 * And then the image, that well-nigh erased Over the castle-gate he did behold, Above a door well wrought in coloured gold Again he saw; a naked girl with wings Enfolded in a serpent's scaly rings.

 * There sat a woman, whose wet tresses rolled On to the floor in waves of gleaming gold, Cast back from such a form as, erewhile shown To one poor shepherd, lighted up Troy town.

 * "Alas, alas! another day gone by, Another day and no soul come," she said; "Another year, and still I am not dead!" And with that word once more her head she raised, And on the trembling man with great eyes gazed.

 * "What man art thou that thus hast wandered here, And found this lonely chamber where I dwell? Beware, beware! for I have many a spell; If greed of power and gold have led thee on, Not lightly shall this untold wealth be won. But if thou com'st here knowing of my tale, In hope to bear away my body fair, Stout must thine heart be, nor shall that avail If thou a wicked soul in thee dost bear; So once again I bid thee to beware, Because no base man things like this may see, And live thereafter long and happily."

 * From those thy words, I deem from some distress By deeds of mine thy dear life I might save; O then, delay not! if one ever gave His life to any, mine I give to thee; Come, tell me what the price of love must be? Swift death, to be with thee a day and night And with the earliest dawning to be slain? Or better, a long year of great delight, And many years of misery and pain? Or worse, and this poor hour for all my gain? A sorry merchant am I on this day, E'en as thou willest so must I obey.

 * "God grant indeed thy words are not for nought! Then shalt thou save me, since for many a day To such a dreadful life I have been brought: Nor will I spare with all my heart to pay What man soever takes my grief away; Ah! I will love thee, if thou lovest me But well enough my saviour now to be.

 * A queen I was, what Gods I knew I loved, And nothing evil was there in my thought, And yet by love my wretched heart was moved Until to utter ruin I was brought! Alas! thou sayest our gods were vain and nought, Wait, wait, till thou hast heard this tale of mine, Then shalt thou think them devilish or divine.

 * For Queen Diana did my body change Into a fork-tongued dragon flesh and fell, And through the island nightly do I range, Or in the green sea mate with monsters strange, When in the middle of the moonlit night The sleepy mariner I do affright.

 * Drowsy I lie, no folk at my command, Who once was called the Lady of the Land; Who might have bought a kingdom with a kiss, Yea, half the world with such a sight as this.

 * "Wilt thou not save me? once in every year This rightful form of mine that thou dost see By favour of the Goddess have I here From sunrise unto sunset given me, That some brave man may end my misery. And thou — art thou not brave? can thy heart fail, Whose eyes e'en now are weeping at my tale?

 * Then listen! when this day is overpast, A fearful monster shall I be again, And thou mayst be my saviour at the last, Unless, once more, thy words are nought and vain. If thou of love and sovereignty art fain, Come thou next morn, and when thou seest here A hideous dragon, have thereof no fear, But take the loathsome head up in thine hands And kiss it, and be master presently Of twice the wealth that is in all the lands From Cathay to the head of Italy; And master also, if it pleaseth thee, Of all thou praisest as so fresh and bright, Of what thou callest crown of all delight. Ah! with what joy then shall I see again The sunlight on the green grass and the trees, And hear the clatter of the summer rain, And see the joyous folk beyond the seas. Ah, me! to hold my child upon my knees After the weeping of unkindly tears And all the wrongs of these four hundred years. Go now, go quick! leave this grey heap of stone; And from thy glad heart think upon thy way, How I shall love thee — yea, love thee alone, That bringest me from dark death unto day; For this shall be thy wages and thy pay; Unheard-of wealth, unheard-of love is near, If thou hast heart a little dread to bear.

 * "Ah! wilt thou leave me then without one kiss, To slay the very seeds of fear and doubt, That glad to-morrow may bring certain bliss? Hast thou forgotten how love lives by this, The memory of some hopeful close embrace, Low whispered words within some lonely place?"

 * So on he went, and on the way he thought Of all the glorious things of yesterday, Nought of the price whereat they must be bought, But ever to himself did softly say "No roaming now, my wars are passed away, No long dull days devoid of happiness, When such a love my yearning heart shall bless."

 * A fearful thing stood at the cloister's end And eyed him for a while, then 'gan to wend Adown the cloisters, and began again That rattling, and the moan like fiends in pain. And as it came on towards him, with its teeth The body of a slain goat did it tear, The blood whereof in its hot jaws did seethe, And on its tongue he saw the smoking hair; Then his heart sank, and standing trembling there, Throughout his mind wild thoughts and fearful ran: "Some fiend she was," he said, "the bane of man." Yet he abode her still, although his blood Curdled within him: the thing dropped the goat, And creeping on, came close to where he stood, And raised its head to him and wrinkled throat. Then he cried out and wildly at her smote, Shutting his eyes, and turned and from the place Ran swiftly, with a white and ghastly face.

 * Meanwhile the dragon, seeing him clean gone, Followed him not, but crying horribly, Caught up within her jaws a block of stone And ground it into powder, then turned she, With cries that folk could hear far out at sea, And reached the treasure set apart of old, To brood above the hidden heaps of gold.

Love is Enough (1872)

 * Love is Enough; or, The Freeing of Pharamond, A Morality (1872)

Song I : Though the World Be A-Waning

 * Love is enough: though the World be a-waning And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining, Though the sky be too dark for dim eyes to discover The gold-cups and daisies fair blooming thereunder, Though the hills be held shadows, and the sea a dark wonder, And this day draw a veil over all deeds passed over, Yet their hands shall not tremble, their feet shall not falter; The void shall not weary, the fear shall not alter These lips and these eyes of the loved and the lover.

Song II: Have No Thought for Tomorrow

 * Love is enough: have no thought for to-morrow If ye lie down this even in rest from your pain, Ye who have paid for your bliss with great sorrow...

 * 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...

 * The wind is not helpless for any man's need, Nor falleth the rain but for thistle and weed.

 * O surely this morning all sorrow is hidden, All battle is hushed for this even at least; And no one this noontide may hunger, unbidden To the flowers and the singing and the joy of your feast Where silent ye sit midst the world's tale increased.

 * Lo, the lovers unloved that draw nigh for your blessing! For your tale makes the dreaming whereby yet they live The dreams of the day with their hopes of redressing, The dreams of the night with the kisses they give, The dreams of the dawn wherein death and hope strive.

 * Ah, what shall we say then, but that earth threatened often Shall live on for ever that such things may be, That the dry seed shall quicken, the hard earth shall soften, And the spring-bearing birds flutter north o'er the sea, That earth's garden may bloom round my love's feet and me?

Song III: It Grew Up Without Heeding

 * Love is enough: it grew up without heeding In the days when ye knew not its name nor its measure, And its leaflets untrodden by the light feet of pleasure Had no boast of the blossom, no sign of the seeding, As the morning and evening passed over its treasure.

 * And what do ye say then? — That Spring long departed Has brought forth no child to the softness and showers; — That we slept and we dreamed through the Summer of flowers; We dreamed of the Winter, and waking dead-hearted Found Winter upon us and waste of dull hours.

 * Nay, Spring was o'er-happy and knew not the reason, And Summer dreamed sadly, for she thought all was ended In her fulness of wealth that might not be amended; But this is the harvest and the garnering season, And the leaf and the blossom in the ripe fruit are blended.

 * It sprang without sowing, it grew without heeding, Ye knew not its name and ye knew not its measure, Ye noted it not mid your hope and your pleasure; There was pain in its blossom, despair in its seeding, But daylong your bosom now nurseth its treasure.

Song IV: Draw Near and Behold Me

 * Love is enough: draw near and behold me Ye who pass by the way to your rest and your laughter, And are full of the hope of the dawn coming after; For the strong of the world have bought me and sold me And my house is all wasted from threshold to rafter. — Pass by me, and hearken, and think of me not!

 * Ye know not how void is your hope and your living: Depart with your helping lest yet ye undo me! Ye know not that at nightfall she draweth near to me, There is soft speech between us and words of forgiving Till in dead of the midnight her kisses thrill through me. — Pass by me and harken, and waken me not!

 * Wherewith will ye buy it, ye rich who behold me? Draw out from your coffers your rest and your laughter, And the fair gilded hope of the dawn coming after! Nay this I sell not, — though ye bought me and sold me, — For your house stored with such things from threshold to rafter. — Pass by me, I hearken, and think of you not!

Song V: Through the Trouble and Tangle

 * Love is enough: through the trouble and tangle From yesterday's dawning to yesterday's night I sought through the vales where the prisoned winds wrangle, Till, wearied and bleeding, at end of the light I met him, and we wrestled, and great was my might.

 * And the Shadow of the Night and not Love was departed; I was sore, I was weary, yet Love lived to seek; So I scaled the dark mountains, and wandered sad-hearted Over wearier wastes, where e'en sunlight was bleak, With no rest of the night for my soul waxen weak.

 * With no rest of the night; for I waked mid a story Of a land wherein Love is the light and the lord, Where my tale shall be heard, and my wounds gain a glory, And my tears be a treasure to add to the hoard Of pleasure laid up for his people's reward.

Song VI: Cherish Life that Abideth

 * Love is enough: cherish life that abideth, Lest ye die ere ye know him, and curse and misname him; For who knows in what ruin of all hope he hideth, On what wings of the terror of darkness he rideth? And what is the joy of man's life that ye blame him For his bliss grown a sword, and his rest grown a fire?

 * Live on, for Love liveth, and earth shall be shaken By the wind of his wings on the triumphing morning, When the dead, and their deeds that die not shall awaken, And the world's tale shall sound in your trumpet of warning, And the sun smite the banner called Scorn of the Scorning, And dead pain ye shall trample, dead fruitless desire, As ye wend to pluck out the new world from the fire.

Song VII: Dawn Talks to Day

 * Dawn talks to Day Over dew-gleaming flowers, Night flies away Till the resting of hours: Fresh are thy feet And with dreams thine eyes glistening, Thy still lips are sweet Though the world is a-listening. O Love, set a word in my mouth for our meeting, Cast thine arms round about me to stay my heart's beating! O fresh day, O fair day, O long day made ours!

 * Morn shall meet noon While the flower-stems yet move, Though the wind dieth soon And the clouds fade above. Loved lips are thine As I tremble and hearken; Bright thine eyes shine, Though the leaves thy brow darken. O Love, kiss me into silence, lest no word avail me, Stay my head with thy bosom lest breath and life fail me! O sweet day, O rich day, made long for our love!

 * Let us speak, love, together some words of our story, That our lips as they part may remember the glory! O soft day, O calm day, made clear for our sake!

 * Eve shall kiss night, And the leaves stir like rain As the wind stealeth light O'er the grass of the plain. Unseen are thine eyes Mid the dreamy night's sleeping, And on my mouth there lies The dear rain of thy weeping.

Song VIII: While Ye Deemed Him A-Sleeping

 * Love is enough: while ye deemed him a-sleeping, There were signs of his coming and sounds of his feet; His touch it was that would bring you to weeping, When the summer was deepest and music most sweet...

 * All wonder of pleasure, all doubt of desire, All blindness, are ended, and no more ye feel If your feet treat his flowers or the flames of his fire, If your breast meet his balms or the edge of his steel. Change is come, and past over, no more strife, no more learning: Now your lips and your forehead are sealed with his seal, Look backward and smile at the thorns and the burning. — Sweet rest, O my soul, and no fear of returning!

Song IX: Ho Ye Who Seek Saving

 * Love is enough: ho ye who seek saving, Go no further; come hither; there have been who have found it, And these know the House of Fulfilment of Craving; These know the Cup with the roses around it; These know the World's Wound and the balm that hath bound it: Cry out, the World heedeth not, "Love, lead us home!"

 * O hearken the words of his voice of compassion: "Come cling round about me, ye faithful who sicken Of the weary unrest and the world's passing fashions! As the rain in mid-morning your troubles shall thicken, But surely within you some Godhead doth quicken, As ye cry to me heeding, and leading you home."

 * "Come — pain ye shall have, and be blind to the ending! Come — fear ye shall have, mid the sky's overcasting! Come — change ye shall have, for far are ye wending! Come — no crown ye shall have for your thirst and your fasting, But the kissed lips of Love and fair life everlasting! Cry out, for one heedeth, who leadeth you home!"

The Decorative Arts (1877)

 * "The Decorative Arts: Their Relation to Modern Life and Progress" (1877) Morris's first public lecture, later published as "The Lesser Arts" in Hopes and Fears for Art (1882)

 * 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. Does not our subject look important enough now? I say that without these arts, our rest would be vacant and uninteresting, our labour mere endurance, mere wearing away of body and mind.

 * When we can get beyond that smoky world, there, out in the country we may still see the works of our fathers yet alive amidst the very nature they were wrought into, and of which they are so completely a part: for there indeed if anywhere, in the English country, in the days when people cared about such things, was there a full sympathy between the works of man, and the land they were made for: — the land is a little land; too much shut up within the narrow seas, as it seems, to have much space for swelling into hugeness: there are no great wastes overwhelming in their dreariness, no great solitudes of forests, no terrible untrodden mountain-walls: all is measured, mingled, varied, gliding easily one thing into another: little rivers, little plains, swelling, speedily- changing uplands, all beset with handsome orderly trees; little hills, little mountains, netted over with the walls of sheep- walks: all is little; yet not foolish and blank, but serious rather, and abundant of meaning for such as choose to seek it: it is neither prison nor palace, but a decent home.

 * I do not want art for a few, any more than education for a few, or freedom for a few.

Art and Socialism (1884)

 * On line text at marxists.org

 * 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.

 * Nothing should be made by man's labour which is not worth making; or which must be made by labour degrading to the makers.

A Dream of John Ball (1886)

 * First printed in The Commonweal (13 November 1886 - 22 January 1887) - online text at the University of Virginia
 * The title refers to the 14th century English rebel John Ball.

 * When I was journeying (in a dream of the night) down the well-remembered reaches of the Thames betwixt Streatley and Wallingford, where the foothills of the White Horse fall back from the broad stream, I came upon a clear-seen mediæval town standing up with roof and tower and spire within its walls, grey and ancient, but untouched from the days of its builders of old. All this I have seen in the dreams of the night clearer than I can force myself to see them in dreams of the day. So that it would have been nothing new to me the other night to fall into an architectural dream if that were all, and yet I have to tell of things strange and new that befell me after I had fallen asleep.
 * Ch. 1: The Men of Kent

 * Forsooth, ye have heard it said that ye shall do well in this world that in the world to come ye may live happily for ever; do ye well then, and have your reward both on earth and in heaven; for I say to you that earth and heaven are not two but one; and this one is that which ye know, and are each one of you a part of, to wit, the Holy Church, and in each one of you dwelleth the life of the Church, unless ye slay it.
 * Ch. 4: The Voice of John Ball

 * Forsooth, brothers, 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, and the life that is in it, that shall live on and on for ever, and each one of you part of it, while many a man's life upon the earth from the earth shall wane. Therefore, I bid you not dwell in hell but in heaven, or while ye must, upon earth, which is a part of heaven, and forsooth no foul part.
 * Ch. 4: The Voice of John Ball

 * Forsooth, he that waketh in hell and feeleth his heart fail him, shall have memory of the merry days of earth, and how that when his heart failed him there, he cried on his fellow, were it his wife or his son or his brother or his gossip or his brother sworn in arms, and how that his fellow heard him and came and they mourned together under the sun, till again they laughed together and were but half sorry between them. This shall he think on in hell, and cry on his fellow to help him, and shall find that therein is no help because there is no fellowship, but every man for himself.
 * Ch. 4: The Voice of John Ball

 * I pondered all these things, and how men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name.
 * Ch. 4: The Voice of John Ball

 * It is for him that is lonely or in prison to dream of fellowship, but for him that is of a fellowship to do and not to dream.
 * Ch. 4: The Voice of John Ball

 * Mastership hath many shifts whereby it striveth to keep itself alive in the world. And now hear a marvel: whereas thou sayest these two times that out of one man ye may get but one man's work, in days to come one man shall do the work of a hundred men — yea, of a thousand or more: and this is the shift of mastership that shall make many masters and many rich men.
 * Ch. 12: Ill Would Change Be At Whiles Were It Not For The Change Beyond The Change.

 * To thee, when thou didst try to conceive of them, the ways of the days to come seemed follies scarce to be thought of; yet shall they come to be familiar things, and an order by which every man liveth, ill as he liveth, so that men shall deem of them, that thus it hath been since the beginning of the world, and that thus it shall be while the world endureth... Yet in time shall this also grow old, and doubt shall creep in, because men shall scarce be able to live by that order, and the complaint of the poor shall be hearkened, no longer as a tale not utterly grievous, but as a threat of ruin, and a fear. Then shall these things, which to thee seem follies, and to the men between thee and me mere wisdom and the bond of stability, seem follies once again; yet, whereas men have so long lived by them, they shall cling to them yet from blindness and from fear; and those that see, and that have thus much conquered fear that they are furthering the real time that cometh and not the dream that faileth, these men shall the blind and the fearful mock and missay, and torment and murder: and great and grievous shall be the strife in those days, and many the failures of the wise, and too oft sore shall be the despair of the valiant; and back-sliding, and doubt, and contest between friends and fellows lacking time in the hubbub to understand each other, shall grieve many hearts and hinder the Host of the Fellowship: yet shall all bring about the end, till thy deeming of folly and ours shall be one, and thy hope and our hope; and then — the Day will have come.
 * Ch. 12: Ill Would Change Be At Whiles Were It Not For The Change Beyond The Change.

Signs of Change (1888)

 * Online text at The University of Adelaide

How We Live And How We Might Live

 * The word Revolution, which we Socialists are so often forced to use, has a terrible sound in most people's ears, even when we have explained to them that it does not necessarily mean a change accompanied by riot and all kinds of violence, and cannot mean a change made mechanically and in the teeth of opinion by a group of men who have somehow managed to seize on the executive power for the moment. Even when we explain that we use the word revolution in its etymological sense, and mean by it a change in the basis of society, people are scared at the idea of such a vast change, and beg that you will speak of reform and not revolution. As, however, we Socialists do not at all mean by our word revolution what these worthy people mean by their word reform, I can't help thinking that it would be a mistake to use it, whatever projects we might conceal beneath its harmless envelope. So we will stick to our word, which means a change of the basis of society; it may frighten people, but it will at least warn them that there is something to be frightened about, which will be no less dangerous for being ignored; and also it may encourage some people, and will mean to them at least not a fear, but a hope.

 * Fear and Hope — those are the names of the two great passions which rule the race of man, and with which revolutionists have to deal; to give hope to the many oppressed and fear to the few oppressors, that is our business; if we do the first and give hope to the many, the few must be frightened by their hope; otherwise we do not want to frighten them; it is not revenge we want for poor people, but happiness; indeed, what revenge can be taken for all the thousands of years of the sufferings of the poor?

The Aims of Art

 * Soon there will be nothing left except the lying dreams of history, the miserable wreckage of our museums and picture-galleries, and the carefully guarded interiors of our aesthetic drawing-rooms, unreal and foolish, fitting witnesses of the life of corruption that goes on there, so pinched and meagre and cowardly, with its concealment and ignoring, rather than restraint of, natural longings; which does not forbid the greedy indulgence in them if it can but be decently hidden.

 * I have said as much as that the aim of art was to destroy the curse of labour by making work the pleasurable satisfaction of our impulse towards energy, and giving to that energy hope of producing something worth its exercise.
 * This has sometimes appeared in paraphrased form as: "The aim of art is to destroy the curse of labour by making work the pleasurable satisfaction of our impulse towards energy, and giving to that energy hope of producing something worth the exercise".

Useful Work versus Useless Toil

 * I think that to all living things there is a pleasure in the exercise of their energies, and that even beasts rejoice in being lithe and swift and strong. But 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 a part of the human race, he creates. If we work thus we shall be men, and our days will be happy and eventful.

 * Worthy work carries with it the hope of pleasure in rest, the hope of the pleasure in our using what it makes, and the hope of pleasure in our daily creative skill. All other work but this is worthless; it is slaves' work — mere toiling to live, that we may live to toil.

News from Nowhere (1890)

 * If others can see it as I have seen it, then it may be called a vision rather than a dream.
 * As he formed the words, the train stopped at his station, five minutes' walk from his own house, which stood on the banks of the Thames, a little way above an ugly suspension bridge. He went out of the station, still discontented and unhappy, muttering "If I could but see it! if I could but see it!" but had not gone many steps towards the river before (says our friend who tells the story) all that discontent and trouble seemed to slip off him.
 * I think I know what you mean. You think that I have done you a service; so you feel yourself bound to give me something which I am not to give to a neighbour, unless he has done something special for me. I have heard of this kind of thing; but pardon me for saying, that it seems to us a troublesome and roundabout custom; and we don't know how to manage it. And you see this ferrying and giving people casts about the water is my business, which I would do for anybody; so to take gifts in connection with it would look very queer. Besides, if one person gave me something, then another might, and another, and so on; and I hope you won't think me rude if I say that I shouldn't know where to stow away so many mementos of friendship.
 * All this seemed very interesting to me, and I should like to have made the old man talk more. But Dick got rather restive under so much ancient history: besides, I suspect he wanted to keep me as fresh as he could for his great-grandfather. So he burst out laughing at last, and said: "Excuse me, neighbours, but I can't help it. Fancy people not liking to work!—it's too ridiculous. Why, even you like to work, old fellow—sometimes," said he, affectionately patting the old horse with the whip. "What a queer disease! it may well be called Mulleygrubs!"
 * Man alive! how can you ask such a question? Have I not told you that we know what a prison means by the undoubted evidence of really trustworthy books, helped out by our own imaginations? And haven't you specially called me to notice that the people about the roads and streets look happy? and how could they look happy if they knew that their neighbours were shut up in prison, while they bore such things quietly? And if there were people in prison, you couldn't hide it from folk, like you can an occasional man-slaying; because that isn't done of set purpose, with a lot of people backing up the slayer in cold blood, as this prison business is. Prisons, indeed! O no, no, no!
 * "Then you suppose nonsense," said he. "I know that there used to be such lunatic affairs as divorce courts. But just consider; all the cases that came into them were matters of property quarrels: and I think, dear guest," said he, smiling, "that though you do come from another planet, you can see from the mere outside look of our world that quarrels about private property could not go on amongst us in our days."
 * But of course I understand your point of view about education, which is that of times past, when 'the struggle for life,' as men used to phrase it (i.e., the struggle for a slave's rations on one side, and for a bouncing share of the slave-holders' privilege on the other), pinched 'education' for most people into a niggardly dole of not very accurate information; something to be swallowed by the beginner in the art of living whether he liked it or not, and was hungry for it or not: and which had been chewed and digested over and over again by people who didn't care about it in order to serve it out to other people who didn't care about it."
 * I must now shock you by telling you that we have no longer anything which you, a native of another planet, would call a government.
 * A terrible tyranny our Communism, is it not? Folk used often to be warned against this very unhappiness in times past, when for every well-fed, contented person you saw a thousand miserable starvelings. Whereas for us, we grow fat and well-liking on the tyranny; a tyranny, to say the truth, not to be made visible by any microscope I know. Don't be afraid, my friend; we are not going to seek for troubles by calling our peace and plenty and happiness by ill names whose very meaning we have forgotten!
 * As a matter of fact, the history of the terrible period of transition from commercial slavery to freedom may thus be summarised. When the hope of realising a communal condition of life for all men arose, quite late in the nineteenth century, the power of the middle classes, the then tyrants of society, was so enormous and crushing, that to almost all men, even those who had, you may say despite themselves, despite their reason and judgement, conceived such hopes, it seemed a dream. So much was this the case that some of those more enlightened men who were then called Socialists, although they well knew, and even stated in public, that the only reasonable condition of Society was that of pure Communism (such as you now see around you), yet shrunk from what seemed to them the barren task of preaching the realisation of a happy dream. Looking back now, we can see that the great motive-power of the change was a longing for freedom and equality, akin if you please to the unreasonable passion of the lover; a sickness of heart that rejected with loathing the aimless solitary life of the well-educated man of that time: phrases, my dear friend, which have lost their meaning to us of the present day; so far removed we are from the dreadful facts which they represent.
 * Go back again, now you have seen us, and your outward eyes have learned that in spite of all the infallible maxims of your day there is yet a time of rest in store for the world, when mastery has changed into fellowship — but not before. Go back again, then, and while you live you will see all round you people engaged in making others live lives which are not their own, while they themselves care nothing for their own real lives — men who hate life though they fear death. Go back and be the happier for having seen us, for having added a little hope to your struggle. Go on living while you may, striving, with whatsoever pain and labour needs must be, to build up little by little the new day of fellowship, and rest, and happiness.

Quotes about Morris

 * I cannot help thinking that it does not matter what goes into the Clarion this week, because William Morris is dead. And what socialist will care for any other news this week, beyond that one sad fact? … William Morris was our best man; and he is dead. It is true that much of his work still lives, and will live. But we have lost him, and, great as was his work, he himself was greater. Many a man of genius is dwarfed by his creations. We could all name men whose personalities seem unworthy of their own words and actions; men who resemble mean jars filled with honey, or foul lamps emitting brilliant beams. Morris was of a nobler kind. He was better than his best. Though his words fell like sword strokes, one always felt that the warrior was stronger than the sword. For Morris was not only a genius, he was a man. Strike at him where you would, he rang true. … His face was as honest as a lion's and you accepted his word as you accept a date from the almanac. This is a censorious world, and as a rule, let a man be chaste as ice, pure as snow, he shall not escape calumny. Yet I have never heard a single word of detraction or dislike spoken of William Morris. Nor is there a Socialist to-day in England but will feel that he has lost a friend. He was our best man. We cannot spare him; we cannot replace him. In all England there lives no braver, kinder, honester, cleverer, heartier man than William Morris. He is dead, and we cannot help feeling for a while that nothing else matters.
 * Robert Blatchford in The Clarion (October 1896).

 * When I first knew Morris nothing would content him but being a monk, and getting to Rome, and then he must be an architect, and apprenticed himself to Street, and worked for two years, but when I came to London and began to paint he threw it all up, and must paint too, and then he must give it up and make poems, and then he must give it up and make window hangings and pretty things, and when he had achieved that, he must be a poet again, and then after two or three years of Earthly Paradise time, he must learn dyeing, and lived in a vat, and learned weaving, and knew all about looms, and then made more books, and learned tapestry, and then wanted to smash everything up and begin the world anew, and now it is printing he cares for, and to make wonderful rich-looking books — and all things he does splendidly — and if he lives the printing will have an end — but not I hope, before Chaucer and the Morte d'Arthur are done; then he'll do I don't know what, but every minute will be alive.
 * Edward Burne-Jones, as quoted in Time Remembered (1933) by Frances Horner, p. 14.

 * Where Morris beats the cerebral utopists all hollow is in the materiality of his imagination. To lead a decent human life in a cramped, featureless, unvaried environment is a tough job; the twenty-story-slab housing development, the hundred-cubicle office, the windows that cannot be opened because the interior "climate" is controlled, the faceless Bauhaus exterior-all utopian in their way, I guess. But not my utopia, or his.
 * 2006 interview in Conversations with Ursula Le Guin

 * We need a return to the William Morris broad conception of art in relation to life, in terms of colours and designs and craftsmanship, and windows opening on to Heaven, instead of narrowing it down to the preciosities of cliques and coteries who seek through their obscurities to keep art esoteric.
 * Ethel Mannin, in Privileged Spectator, 1939.

 * William Morris's News from Nowhere, an anarchist utopian novel in which women possess both equality and a natural predilection for the tasks of domesticity...Morris, along with a host of other nineteenth-century men, obviously believed that to engage in the role of helpmeet, to cook, to clean, and to run a house were natural female functions. Therefore, women of his utopia did not consider such duties evidence of inequality.
 * Margaret S Marsh, Anarchist Women, 1870-1920 (1981)

 * News from Nowhere was one of Voltairine de Cleyre's favorite books
 * Margaret S Marsh, Anarchist Women, 1870-1920 (1981)

 * It is Morris... who can properly be called the first English Marxist. This truth has been but slowly recognised, not only by the reformists and anarchists who each, in their own fashion, have tried to annex him, but also by Marxists.
 * Arthur Leslie Morton, in Political Writings of William Morris (1973), p. 21.

 * It was William Morris who in modern times first joined these two words [bookmaking and art] together by the publication of his magnificent Kelmscott volumes. Such type, such decorations, such presswork, such sheer, composite beauty! ... from the very beginning Morris' innovations showed the world that printing still belonged among the fine arts.
 * William Dana Orcutt, in In Quest of the Perfect Book (1926), p. 6-7.

 * So far Morris is the true prophet of the 20th century. We owe it to him that an ordinary man's dwelling-house has once more become a worthy object of the architect's thought, and a chair, a wallpaper, or a vase, a worthy object of the artist's imagination.
 * Nikolaus Pevsner, in Pioneers of Modern Design (1936).

 * Hence has arisen that exaltation of the defective, of which John Ruskin and William Morris were such eager spokesmen in their time; and on this ground their propaganda of crudity and wasted effort has been taken up and carried forward since their time. And hence also the propaganda for a return to handicraft and household industry. So much of the work and speculations of this group of men as fairly comes under the characterization here given would have been impossible at a time when the visibly more perfect goods were not the cheaper.
 * Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions (1899).

 * William Morris pleaded well for simplicity as the basis of all true art. Let us understand the significance to art of that word — SIMPLICITY — for it is vital to the Art of the Machine.
 * Frank Lloyd Wright, in "The Art and Craft of the Machine", a lecture to the Chicago Arts & Crafts Society (6 March 1901).

title: William Morris


text:
Template talk:Wikipedia

Technical problem
On some articles using this template, the link that should point to the article, is in stead a (red) link to a non-existing wikiquote page. see for example Airplane!, should be pointing to Airplane, and also. -- Zanaq

 * This seems to be a new software glitch popping up. Unfortunately I'm in a bit of a rush and don't have time to do much more than state this right now. ~ Kalki 22:37, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Interwiki links and Category
Please add:

bg:Шаблон:Уикипедия ca:Template:Viquipèdia da:Template:Wikipedia de:Template:Wikipedia eo:Template:Wikipedia es:Plantilla:Wikipedia et:Template:Vikipeedia gl:Template:Wikipedia hr:Template:Wikipedija it:Template:Wikipedia la:Template:Vicipaedia lb:Template:Wikipedia lt:Šablonas:Vikipedija nl:Template:Wikipedia no:Template:Wikipedia pl:Template:Wikipedia pt:Predefinição:Wikipédia ru:Шаблон:Википедия simple:Template:Wikipedia sk:Template:Wikipedia sl:Predloga:Wikipedija sv:Template:Wikipedia tr:Şablon:Vikipedi ml:ഫലകം:വിക്കിപീഡിയ

Thanks. --DStoykov 00:25, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Better late than never, but I'm about to add interwikis for this template that include (and surpass) the list. So, after more than a year, this edit request will finally be fulfilled. ;) EVula // talk // 03:48, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

missing cat
This template should be categorized at Category:Interwiki link templates

70.51.8.129 11:42, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Category added. EVula // talk // 03:44, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Superfluous line break
The line break before  can cause too much vertical whitespace after this template. Can someone plaase remove it? Svick 12:44, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

New logo
Please replace the wikipedia logo image with File:Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg. The current one is deprecated. --Fryed-peach 14:47, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅. (Seems like there ought to be a "permalink" for whatever version is current.) ~ Ningauble 20:42, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Interwiki
Please remove the interwiki links. They are handled by Wikidata. Regards, -- T.seppelt (talk) 11:57, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Disable float on mobile
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I would like to add this template to Category:Templates without documentation, but this page is protected. Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 16:45, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Template talk:Wikipedia


text: User:Mysekurity

title: User:Mysekurity


text:
Disaster

A disaster is a natural or man-made (or technological) hazard resulting in an event of substantial extent causing significant physical damage or destruction, loss of life, or drastic change to the environment. A disaster can be ostensively defined as any tragic event stemming from events such as earthquakes, floods, catastrophic accidents, fires, or explosions. It is a phenomenon that can cause damage to life, property and destroy the economic, social and cultural life of people.

Quotes

 * There's no disaster that can't become a blessing, and no blessing that can't become a disaster.
 * Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970).

 * CALAMITY, n. A more than commonly plain and unmistakable reminder that the affairs of this life are not of our own ordering. Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
 * Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Dictionary (1906); republished as The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

 * Market signals were clear: There's no profit in preventing a future catastrophe.
 * Noam Chomsky, in an interview with C.J. Polychroniou, Chomsky: Ventilator Shortage Exposes the Cruelty of Neoliberal Capitalism (April 1, 2020), .

 * The formula for achieving a successful relationship: You should treat all disasters as if they were trivialities but never treat a triviality as if it were a disaster.
 * Quentin Crisp, Manners from Heaven: A Divine Guide to Good Behaviour (1984), chapter 7.

 * The truth is, we like to talk over our disasters, because they are ours ; and others like to listen, because they are not theirs.
 * Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Francesca Carrara (1834), Vol. III, Chapter 34.

 * Disaster is a natural part of my evolution, toward tragedy and dissolution.
 * Tyler Durden, in Fight Club (1996) by Chuck Palahniuk, p. 101.

 * Dread of disaster makes everybody act in the very way that increases the disaster.
 * Bertrand Russell, New Hopes for a Changing World (1951), p. 132-133.

title: Disaster


text:
User talk:68.193.130.84

Adding unrelated external links to Wikiquote pages is considered vandalism. Wikiquote is NOT a vehicle for advertising or a mere collection of links. If you continue to use Wikiquote for advertising, you will be blocked from editing. —This unsigned comment is by Jni (talk • contribs) 05:54, 12 September 2005 (UTC).

title: User talk:68.193.130.84


text:
The Royal Tenenbaums

The Royal Tenenbaums is a 2001 film about a family of former child prodigies that reunites when their estranged father announces he has a terminal illness.
 * Directed by Wes Anderson. Written by Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson.

FAMILY ISN'T A WORD...IT'S A SENTENCE. Taglines

Royal Tenenbaum

 * Hell of a damn grave. Wish it were mine.
 * I'm not talking about dance lessons. I'm talking about putting a brick through the other guy's windshield. I'm talking about taking it out and chopping it up.
 * He looks pretty good for a suicide. Attempted, anyway.
 * Let's Shag Ass.

Eli Cash

 * Why would a review make the point of saying someone's not a genius? You think I'm especially not a genius? [Pause] You didn't even have to think about it, did you?
 * Well, everyone knows Custer died at Little Bighorn. What this book presupposes is... maybe he didn't?
 * Wildcat was written in a kind of obsolete vernacular. Wildcat...pkow. Okay, I'm gonna go.
 * The crickets and the rust-beetles scuttled among the nettles of the sage thicket. "Vámonos, amigos," he whispered, and threw the busted leather flintcraw over the loose weave of the saddlecock. And they rode on in the friscalating dusklight.

Dialogue

 * Richie: Read it back to me so far, Pietro.
 * Pietro: Dear Eli, I'm in the middle of the ocean. I haven't left my room in four days. I've never been more lonely in my life, and I think I'm in love with Margot.
 * Richie: New paragraph.

 * [Chas Tenenbaum and his sons enter his mother's house with several bags]
 * Etheline: Chas? What's going on?
 * Chas: We got locked out of our apartment.
 * Etheline: Well, did you call a locksmith?
 * Chas: Uh-huh.
 * Etheline: Well, I don't understand. Did you pack your bags BEFORE you got locked out?
 * Chas: It's not safe there.
 * Etheline: What are you talking about?
 * Chas: The apartment. I have to get some new sprinklers and a back-up security system installed.
 * Etheline: But there are no sprinklers here either.
 * Chas: We might have to do something about that too.

 * Eli Cash: I'm not in love with you any more.
 * Margot: I didn't think you ever were.
 * Eli Cash: Let's not make this harder than it already is.
 * Margot: OK.
 * Eli Cash: OK what?
 * Margot: OK, I'm not in love with you any more either.
 * Eli Cash: I know. You're in love with Richie, which is sick and gross.
 * Margot: Do you send my mother your clippings? And your grades in ---
 * Eli Cash: Please stop belittling me. You never gave me the time of day until I started getting good reviews.
 * Margot: The reviews aren't that good.
 * Eli Cash: But the sales are.

 * Royal: [indicating Pagoda] He saved my life, you know. 30 years ago, I was knifed in a bazaar in Calcutta. He carried me to the hospital on his back.
 * Ari: Who stabbed you?
 * [Royal motions to Pagoda again.]
 * Royal: He did. There was a price on my head, and he was a hired assassin. Stuck me right in the gut with a shiv.

 * Chas: Why'd you try to kill yourself?
 * Etheline: Don't press him right now.
 * Richie: I wrote a suicide note.
 * Chas: You did?
 * Richie: Yeah. Right after I regained consciousness.
 * [Everyone looks slightly confused.]
 * Chas: Can we read it?
 * Richie: No.
 * Chas: Can you paraphrase it for us?
 * Richie: I don't think so.
 * Chas: Is it dark?
 * Richie: Of course it's dark. It's a suicide note.

 * Eli: I always wanted to be a Tenenbaum.
 * Royal: Me too, me too.

 * Eli: I wish you'd've done this for me when I was a kid.
 * Richie: But you didn't have a drug problem then.
 * Eli: Yeah, but it still would've meant a lot to me.

 * Royal: I'm dying, baby. I'm sick as a dog. I'll be dead in six weeks. I'm dying.
 * Etheline: What are you talking about? What happened? Oh, my God. I'm sorry. I didn't know. What'd they say? What's the prognosis?
 * Royal: Take it easy, Ethel. Hold on. Hold on.
 * Etheline: Where's the doctor? Let's get -
 * Royal: Wait a second. Listen. I'm not dying. But I need some time. A month. Maybe two. I want us to -
 * Etheline: What's wrong with you?
 * Royal: Ethel.
 * Etheline: Go away!
 * Royal: Baby. I am dying.
 * Etheline: Are you or aren't you?
 * Royal: Dying? Yes.

 * Royal: Look, I know I'm gonna be the bad guy on this one. But I just wanna say the last six days have been the best six days of probably my whole life.
 * Narrator: Immediately after making this statement, Royal realized that it was true.

 * Richie: Did you just say you're on mescaline?
 * Eli: I did indeed. Very much so.

Taglines

 * FAMILY ISN'T A WORD...IT'S A SENTENCE.
 * You Are Invited To A Remarkable Family Gathering.

Cast

 * Gene Hackman - Royal Tenenbaum
 * Anjelica Huston - Etheline Tenenbaum
 * Gwyneth Paltrow - Margot Tenenbaum
 * Luke Wilson - Richie Tenenbaum
 * Ben Stiller - Chas Tenenbaum
 * Owen Wilson - Eli Cash
 * Bill Murray - Raleigh St. Clair
 * Danny Glover - Henry Sherman
 * Alec Baldwin - Narrator
 * Prized Beagle - Buckley

title: The Royal Tenenbaums


text:
Talk:Team America: World Police

Quality
An exerpt from Jeff Q's comments on Talk:Main_Page, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
 * ...I can say that Team America: World Police is considerably far from the currently recommended film format...

I checked out Wikiquote talk:Templates and found nothing obviously wrong. ''...most are following the organize-by-character, bulleted format, which is a logical extension of the prevailing Wikiquote individual-quote format for people and literary works. My own interest in quotations is primarily with dialog, so I guess I'm a point man for dissension on this approach... (Also by Jeff Q) I personally do not favour the organize-by-character, bulleted format'' because: Maybe anyone can hint at some modes of improvement. -- w:User:Zanaq.
 * Chronological Order & focus on dialogue
 * Format like Blackadder, a cited quotepage.
 * The separation between quotes is not that clear. (but it still looks better than ones with lines in between)
 * The markup looks terrible.
 * Chronological is more logical, more easily verifiable, and more clear, especially when focussing on dialogue.
 * Did I mention I really like the formatting on Blackadder?

 * Zanaq, you are quoting from a fairly old commentary on TV show and film formats. The current practices I alluded to (but failed to provide a link for — mea culpa) are subpages of Templates and are cited on that page. The one for films is, rather logically, Templates/Films. I agree with you on the preference for chronological over bulleted quotes. I've made the point in those old commentaries that I find dialog-only format to be sufficient, but the community still seems to prefer to keep the single-line bullets at least for some quotes. On the subject of Blackadder, I added the half-width lines at one point, but someone else reversed them, preferring the extra whitespace (which I also explain in those old formatting conversations tends to make the page look really bad unless you're using the default skin). Since then, we've actually made the half-width lines part of formal policy. Even though I started that markup, I've wished we had something better, but my pleas for skin-neutral spacing for dialog formatting have been completely ignored to date by the developers (although I may not have brought the issue up in the best venues). ~ Jeff Q (talk) 22:44, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Yeah. I see. It really looks awful on most skins, I checked it out. the two blank lines are rendered as >4 lines. Even the default skin could do with a little less space. Would there be a particular reason for this? it would seem easy enough to fix. Let's raise the question in better venues. And aren't most people using the default skin (or lynx) anyway? Zanaq 14 september 2005.

 * I'm not sure what the best venues are. I had a vague notion of setting up my own wiki for development, creating a markup for dialog and poetry formatting, and offering it as an enhancement for future MediaWiki releases, since it's always a good idea to have at least a potential solution if you're going to raise a problem. But I'm fairly sure that new markup (as well as changes to the existing skins) would run into significant opposition and/or indifference, after my earlier experiences. Basically, I'm just tired of fighting these hopeless battles, and have settled down to doing non-controversial edits, administration, and trying to increase my actual new-article contributions. If you have the energy, you're welcome to try. I'll chime in if it looks promising. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 02:55, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

 * Yes. It's a difficult problem. The fact remains that this widely spaced format looks incredibly clear when Monobook is used. I checked out the html rendering, and it seems that this double line space is not due to the 2 inserted lines but due to the default rendering of  and the like. When styles are switched off (for instance in using firefox) the extra space increases. I haven't checked out lynx yet. I'm still thinking, because I really think the recommended format looks awful. Zanaq 20 september 2005.

Song
I've just added a new song to the list, it's played at the end of the credits. I bought my DVD in the UK, so I know it's on the UK PAL DVDs, but what about the others (such as the USA ones)?

title: Talk:Team America: World Police


text:
User talk:172.212.197.14

Thanks for experimenting with Wikiquote. Your test worked, and has now been reverted or removed. Please use Sandbox for any other tests you want to do, since testing in articles will normally be reverted quickly. Please see the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our compendium of quotations. Thanks. jni 13:06, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:172.212.197.14


text:
Talk:Epicurus

The article needs a cleanup
As I noted a few days ago at User talk:86.129.142.19 believe this article has become far too much filled with commentary rather than quotations. Much of the new material and organization might belong in a study-guide for Epicurus at Wikibooks but not here. I probably won't have the time to do much myself here for at least a few days, but I thought a note should be made of the situation. ~ Achilles 20:31, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

 * WTF? 18 months later and no one has removed these non-quotes?

SO TRUE! In fact, it has parts that ARE NOT in the original, such as David Hume's "quotations" about "Epicurus" formulation of the problem of God and Evil, grafted into "The Letter to Menoeceus." What source did the original article use...?

 * The very extensive commentary that was added to this article has now been removed, by reverting to a previous version and building a valid collection of quotations from that base. ~ Kalki 12:19, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

What a quote ...
This single quote (though it might have been some other thinker): ''Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?'' made me an atheist. What a great quote. Most people think like this when they lose a relative to a terrorist act or some other bad thing happens, or some unanswered prayers occur. Nothing of that sort has happened to me, but it's idiotic to believe literally in fairy-tales and very very old books.--76.112.207.80 16:26, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
 * can anyone find a source for that qoute?--190.246.77.135 16:07, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Here's what Hume scholar J. C. A. Gaskin says in the Explanatory Notes to his edition of Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion:
 * "[N]o such terse and effective sequence of questions occurs in any extant work of Epicurus. The immediate source for Hume is very probably Bayle's Dictionary (which he is using extensively in this part of the Dialogues), the article on Paulicians, note E or (for both Bayle and Hume) On the Anger of God, ch. 13, by Lactantius (AD 260-340), for which see The Works of Lactantius, trans. W. Fletcher (Edinburgh, 1871; or London, 1951). A somewhat similar form of words occurs in Sextus Empiricus (second century AD), but there is no attribution to Epicurus. See his Outlines of Pyrrhonism, III. iii."
 * The Lactantius text can be found here: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0703.htm
 * "You see, therefore, that we have greater need of wisdom on account of evils; and unless these things had been proposed to us, we should not be a rational animal. But if this account is true, which the Stoics were in no manner able to see, that argument also of Epicurus is done away. God, he says, either wishes to take away evils, and is unable; or He is able, and is unwilling; or He is neither willing nor able, or He is both willing and able. If He is willing and is unable, He is feeble, which is not in accordance with the character of God; if He is able and unwilling, He is envious, which is equally at variance with God; if He is neither willing nor able, He is both envious and feeble, and therefore not God; if He is both willing and able, which alone is suitable to God, from what source then are evils? or why does He not remove them? I know that many of the philosophers, who defend providence, are accustomed to be disturbed by this argument, and are almost driven against their will to admit that God takes no interest in anything, which Epicurus especially aims at; but having examined the matter, we easily do away with this formidable argument. For God is able to do whatever He wishes, and there is no weakness or envy in God. He is able, therefore, to take away evils; but He does not wish to do so, and yet He is not on that account envious. For on this account He does not take them away, because He at the same time gives wisdom, as I have shown; and there is more of goodness and pleasure in wisdom than of annoyance in evils. For wisdom causes us even to know God, and by that knowledge to attain to immortality, which is the chief good. Therefore, unless we first know evil, we shall be unable to know good. But Epicurus did not see this, nor did any other, that if evils are taken away, wisdom is in like manner taken away; and that no traces of virtue remain in man, the nature of which consists in enduring and overcoming the bitterness of evils. And thus, for the sake of a slight gain in the taking away of evils, we should be deprived of a good, which is very great, and true, and peculiar to us. It is plain, therefore, that all things are proposed for the sake of man, as well evils as also goods."
 * The Lactantius text can be found here: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0703.htm
 * "You see, therefore, that we have greater need of wisdom on account of evils; and unless these things had been proposed to us, we should not be a rational animal. But if this account is true, which the Stoics were in no manner able to see, that argument also of Epicurus is done away. God, he says, either wishes to take away evils, and is unable; or He is able, and is unwilling; or He is neither willing nor able, or He is both willing and able. If He is willing and is unable, He is feeble, which is not in accordance with the character of God; if He is able and unwilling, He is envious, which is equally at variance with God; if He is neither willing nor able, He is both envious and feeble, and therefore not God; if He is both willing and able, which alone is suitable to God, from what source then are evils? or why does He not remove them? I know that many of the philosophers, who defend providence, are accustomed to be disturbed by this argument, and are almost driven against their will to admit that God takes no interest in anything, which Epicurus especially aims at; but having examined the matter, we easily do away with this formidable argument. For God is able to do whatever He wishes, and there is no weakness or envy in God. He is able, therefore, to take away evils; but He does not wish to do so, and yet He is not on that account envious. For on this account He does not take them away, because He at the same time gives wisdom, as I have shown; and there is more of goodness and pleasure in wisdom than of annoyance in evils. For wisdom causes us even to know God, and by that knowledge to attain to immortality, which is the chief good. Therefore, unless we first know evil, we shall be unable to know good. But Epicurus did not see this, nor did any other, that if evils are taken away, wisdom is in like manner taken away; and that no traces of virtue remain in man, the nature of which consists in enduring and overcoming the bitterness of evils. And thus, for the sake of a slight gain in the taking away of evils, we should be deprived of a good, which is very great, and true, and peculiar to us. It is plain, therefore, that all things are proposed for the sake of man, as well evils as also goods."
 * "You see, therefore, that we have greater need of wisdom on account of evils; and unless these things had been proposed to us, we should not be a rational animal. But if this account is true, which the Stoics were in no manner able to see, that argument also of Epicurus is done away. God, he says, either wishes to take away evils, and is unable; or He is able, and is unwilling; or He is neither willing nor able, or He is both willing and able. If He is willing and is unable, He is feeble, which is not in accordance with the character of God; if He is able and unwilling, He is envious, which is equally at variance with God; if He is neither willing nor able, He is both envious and feeble, and therefore not God; if He is both willing and able, which alone is suitable to God, from what source then are evils? or why does He not remove them? I know that many of the philosophers, who defend providence, are accustomed to be disturbed by this argument, and are almost driven against their will to admit that God takes no interest in anything, which Epicurus especially aims at; but having examined the matter, we easily do away with this formidable argument. For God is able to do whatever He wishes, and there is no weakness or envy in God. He is able, therefore, to take away evils; but He does not wish to do so, and yet He is not on that account envious. For on this account He does not take them away, because He at the same time gives wisdom, as I have shown; and there is more of goodness and pleasure in wisdom than of annoyance in evils. For wisdom causes us even to know God, and by that knowledge to attain to immortality, which is the chief good. Therefore, unless we first know evil, we shall be unable to know good. But Epicurus did not see this, nor did any other, that if evils are taken away, wisdom is in like manner taken away; and that no traces of virtue remain in man, the nature of which consists in enduring and overcoming the bitterness of evils. And thus, for the sake of a slight gain in the taking away of evils, we should be deprived of a good, which is very great, and true, and peculiar to us. It is plain, therefore, that all things are proposed for the sake of man, as well evils as also goods."

As tightly argued as it is, I don't even think it's a correct quote from Hume: "Epicurus's old questions are yet unanswered. / Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil? / You ascribe, Cleanthes (and I believe justly), a purpose and intention to Nature." (http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/dnr.htm) I like the snappier version better, but I don't know who it really belongs to.

Unsourced
Wikiquote no longer allows unsourced quotations, and they are in process of being removed from our pages (see Wikiquote:Limits on quotations); but if you can provide a reliable, precise and verifiable source for any quote on this list please move it to Epicurus. --Antiquary 18:30, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.

 * We begin every act of choice and avoidance from pleasure, and it is to pleasure that we return using our experience of pleasure as the criterion of every good thing.

 * Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

i added this quote: "He who is not satisfied with a little, is satisfied with nothing". i didn't encountered a really good source, but please don't remove (instead, find a better source). a philosophy teacher of mine once wrote this on the blackboard, and i was searching for much time (in portuguese: "Aquele que não se sadisfaz com pouco, não se sadisfaz com nada", I will add to portuguese wikiquote too). Searching in English was impossible because I didn't had the spelling. I was looking for the author, but I then remembered it might be epicurus. (It was like 5 years ago). Anyway, such a nice project BTW, =) --187.40.168.157 04:01, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

 * Εἰ βούλει πλούσιόν τινα ποιῆσα, μὴ χρημάτων προστίθει, τῆς δὲ ἐπιθυμίας ἀφαίρει
 * If you would make a man rich do not add to his possessions, but take away from his desires
 * Claimed to be from Strobaeus' Florilegium IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 23:50, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Please Help this article needs a cleanup
"Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" from Atheism: Jonathan Miller's Brief History of Disbelief quotes this. I don't have any source or citation info, sorry. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFa8i3oB550. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2250104590805018608#

This is an anonymous, unsourced quote known around the world and should be saved for posterity. just cite this video form BBC it's on youtube for crying out loud. Anyway here's a couple videos from youtube. some one else please update. Maybe someone from the U.K. And also delete half the posts on this sad sand box of a page. Thx.

This is an anonymous, unsourced quote known around the world and should be saved for posterity. And is a good contemporary English translation of Epicurius. I don't have any source or citation info, sorry. just cite this video form BBC. BBC FOUR has had 3 years to remove it and not bothered. Anyway here's a couple videos from youtube. some one else please update. Maybe someone from the U.K. And also delete half the posts on this sad sand box of a page. Thx.

24/3/11

title: Talk:Epicurus


text:
User talk:70.241.20.13

Deliberate vandalism can result in IP numbers being blocked from editing. ~ Kalki 01:19, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:70.241.20.13


text:
Chief Seattle

Chief Seattle (also Sealth, Seathl or See-ahth) (c. 1786 – June 7, 1866) was a leader of the Suquamish and Duwamish Native American tribes in what is now the U.S. state of Washington.

Statement on surrendering tribal lands to Isaac Stevens, governor of Washington Territory (1855)
(NB: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Seattle for historical details of this statement, which states "Chief Seattle gave a speech in January 1854 that was reported by Dr. Henry A. Smith in the Seattle Sunday Star in 1887. It is most usually called Seattle's Reply since it was a response to a speech by Territorial Governor Isaac I. Stevens. While there is no question that Chief Seattle gave a speech on this occasion, the accuracy of Smith's account is doubtful.").

 * My people are few. They resemble the scattering trees of a storm-swept plain...There was a time when our people covered the land as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea cover its shell-paved floor, but that time long since passed away with the greatness of tribes that are now but a mournful memory.

 * At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled them and still love this beautiful land. The white man will never be alone.

Misattributed
The following quotes, purportedly taken from a letter in which Seattle pleaded that his name should die with the ceding of the Washington State territories, was shown in 1992 to have been a fiction, devised by television scriptwriter Ted Perry for a historical epic in 1971. See "Chief Seattle", Snopes (Sept. 26, 2007).

 * Every part of all this soil is sacred to my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove has been hollowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished. The very dust you now stand on responds more willingly to their footsteps than to yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch.

 * Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only change of worlds.

 * We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of the land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy - and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his fathers' graves, and his children’s birthright is forgotten.

 * Tribe follows tribe, nations follow nations like the tides of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless.

 * Today is fair. Tomorrow may be overcast with clouds. My words are like the stars that never change.

 * How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land?

 * Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people.

 * The sap which courses through the trees carries the memory of the red man.

 * The perfumed flowers are our sisters, the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man - all belong to the same family. This shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors.

 * If we sell you land, you must remember that it is sacred, and you must teach your children that it is sacred and that the ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells us events and memories in the life of my people. The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father. The rivers are our brothers, they quench our thirst. The rivers carry our cannoes, feed our children. If we sell our land, you must learn, and teach your children, that the rivers are our brothers, and yours, and you must henceforth give the rivers the kindness you would give any brother.

 * You must teach the children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of your grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves.

 * Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.

 * The Earth does not belong to man; man belongs to Earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

 * What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, men would die from great loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beasts also happens to the man.

Quotes about Chief Seattle

 * In this moment of spiritual triumph we can see why the film (Follow Me Home) begins with a quotation of words by Chief Seattle, when he said that after the last red man was gone the land would still be filled with their spirits: "The white man will never be alone." Is this a promise (as heard by some people of color) or a threat (as heard by some whites) or simply a truth that we should all heed?
 * Elizabeth Martinez, De Colores Means All of Us (1998)

 * Just like Chief Seattle talked about being in the web of life, in India we talk about vasudhaiva kutumbkam, which means the earth family. Indian cosmology has never separated the human from the non-human—we are a continuum.
 * Vandana Shiva Interview with Yes Magazine (2003)

title: Chief Seattle


text:
The Last Unicorn

The Last Unicorn (1968) is a fantasy novel by Peter S. Beagle about a unicorn who learns that she is the last unicorn in the world and sets out from her enchanted forest to find what has happened to all the others, which have been hunted and driven away from the forests of the world by a creature known as the Red Bull.
 * See also:
 * The Last Unicorn (film)

Quotes

 * To the memory of Dr. Olfert Dapper, who saw a wild unicorn in the Maine woods in 1673, and for Robert Nathan, who has seen one or two in Los Angeles.
 * Dedication

 * The unicorn lived in a lilac wood and she lived all alone. She was very old, though she did not know it, and she was no longer the careless color of sea foam, but rather the color of snow falling on a moonlit night. But her eyes were still clear and unwearied, and she still moved like a shadow on the sea.
 * Ch. I

 * "How can it be?" she wondered. "I suppose I could understand it if men had simply forgotten unicorns or if they had changed so that they hated all unicorns now and tried to kill them when they saw them. But not to see them at all, to look at them and see something else — what do they look like to one another, then? What do trees look like to them, or houses, or real horses, or their own children?"
 * Ch. I

 * No, no, listen. Don't listen to me, listen. You can find your people if you are brave. They passed down all the roads long ago, and the Red Bull ran close behind them and covered their footprints.
 * Ch. I

 * It's a rare man who is taken for what he truly is … There is much misjudgment in the world. … We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream.
 * Chap. II

 * He was not lying, merely organizing events more sensibly.
 * Chap. IV

 * "Where you are going now," Schmendrick answered, "few will mean you anything but evil, and a friendly heart — however foolish — may be as welcome as water one day. Take me with you, for laughs, for luck, for the unknown. Take me with you."
 * Chap. IV

 * We do lead a good life here, or if we don't, I don't know anything about it. I sometimes think that a little fear, a little hunger, might be good for us — sharpen our souls, so to speak.
 * Chap. IV

 * But Molly pushed him aside and went up to the unicorn, scolding her as though she were a strayed milk cow. "Where have you been?" Before the whiteness and the shining horn, Molly shrank to a shining beetle, but this time it was the unicorn's old dark eyes that looked down. "I am here now," she said at last. Molly laughed with her lips flat. "And what good is that to me that you're here now? Where were you twenty years ago, ten years ago? How dare you come to me now, when I am this?" ... The unicorn made no reply, and Schmendrick said, "She is the last. She is the last unicorn in the world." "She would be." Molly sniffed. "It would be the last unicorn in the world that comes to Molly Grue."
 * Ch. VI

 * That's a good curse, that's a professional job. I always say, whatever you're having done, go to an expert. It pays in the long run.
 * Ch. VII

 * The most professional curse ever snarled or croaked or thundered can have no effect on a pure heart.
 * Ch. VII

 * "I will tell you a story," Schmendrick said. "As a child I was apprenticed to the mightiest magician of all, the great Nikos, whom I have spoken of before. But even Nikos, who could turn cats into cattle, snowflakes into snowdrops, and unicorns into men, could not change me into so much as a carnival cardsharp. A last he said to me, 'My son, your ineptitude is so vast, your incompetence so profound, that I am certain you are inhabited by greater power than I have ever known. Unfortunately, it seems to work backwards at the moment, and even I can find no way to set it right. It must be that you are meant to find your own way to reach your power in time; but frankly, you should live so long as that will take you. Therefore I grant it that you shall not age from this day forth, but will travel the world round and round, eternally inefficient, until at last you come to yourself and know what you are. Don't thank me. I tremble at your doom."
 * Ch. VIII

 * Molly Grue gathered her courage to answer, even though she suspected that it was impossible to speak the truth to King Haggard. Something in his winter presence blighted all words, tangled meanings, and bent honest intentions into shapes as tormented as the towers of his castle.
 * Chap. IX

 * "But what's left on earth that I haven't tried?" Prince Lír demanded. "I have swum four rivers, each in full flood and some more than a mile wide. I have climbed seven mountains never before climbed, slept three nights in the march of the Hanged Men, and walked alive out of that forest where the flowers burn your eyes and the nightingales sing poison. I have ended my betrothal to the princess I had agreed to marry — and if you don't think that was a heroic deed, you don't know her mother. I have vanquished exactly fifteen black knights, waiting by the ford in their black pavillion, challenging all who came to cross. And I've long since lost count of the witches in the thorny woods, the giants, the demons disguised as damsels, the glass hills, the fatal riddles, and terrible tasks; the magic apples, rings, lamps, potions, swords, cloaks, boots, neckties, and nightcaps. Not to mention the winged horses, the basillisks and sea serpents, and all the rest of the livestock."
 * Ch X

 * "I like being brave well enough, but I will be a lazy coward again if you think that would be better. The sight of her makes me want to do battle with all evil and ugliness, but it also makes me want to sit still and be unhappy."
 * Ch X.

 * The prince said, "Who is she Molly? What kind of woman is it who believes — who knows, for I saw her face — that she can cure wounds with a touch, and who weeps without tears?" Molly went on about her work, still humming to herself. "Any woman can weep without tears," she answered over her shoulder, "and most can heal with her hands. It depends on the wound. She is a woman, Your Highness, and that's riddle enough."
 * Ch X.

 * "I must go. There is a ogre of some sort devouring village maidens two day's ride from here. It is said that he can be slain only by one who wields the Great Ax of Duke Alban. Unfortunately, Duke Alban himself was one of the first consumed — he was dressed as a village maiden at the time, to deceive the monster — and there is little doubt who holds the Great Ax now. If I do not return, think of me. Farewell."
 * Ch X

 * "Cruel?" she asked. "How can I be cruel? That is for mortals." But then she did raise her eyes, and they were great with sorrow, and with something very near to mockery. She said, "So is kindness."
 * Chap. X

 * I am what I am. I would tell you what you want to know if I could, for you have been kind to me. But I am a cat, and no cat anywhere ever gave anyone a straight answer.
 * Ch. X.

 * "Do you like the first poem?" "It certainly had a lot of feeling," she said. "Can you really rhyme 'bloomed' and 'ruined'?" "It needs a bit of smoothing out," Prince Lír admitted, "'Miracle' is the word I'm worried about." "I was wondering about 'grackle' myself."
 * Ch. XI

 * But the skull was laughing again; this time making a thoughtful, almost kindly noise. "Remember what I told you about time," it said. "When I was alive, I believed — as you do — that time was at least as real and solid as myself, and probably more so. I said 'one o'clock' as though I could see it, and 'Monday' as though I could find it on the map; and I let myself be hurried along from minute to minute, day to day, year to year, as though I were actually moving from one place to another. Like everyone else, I lived in a house bricked up with seconds and minutes, weekends and New Year's Days, and I never went outside until I died, because there was no other door. Now I know that I could've walked through the walls."
 * Ch. XII

 * But at the same moment, Prince Lír said, "No." The word escaped him as suddenly as a sneeze, emerging in a questioning squeak — the voice of a silly young man mortally embarressed by a rich and terrible gift. "No," he repeated, and this time the word tolled in another voice, a kings's voice; not Haggard, but a king whose grief was not for what he did not have, but for what he could not give. "My lady," he said, "I am a hero. It is a trade, no more, like weaving or brewing, and like them it has its own tricks and knacks and small arts. There are ways of perceiving witches, and knowing of poison streams; there are certain weak spots that all dragons tend to have, and certain riddles that hooded strangers tend to set you. But the true secret in being a hero lies in knowing the order of things. The swineherd cannot already be wed to the princess when he embarks on his adventures, nor can the boy knock on the witch's door when she is already away on vacation. The wicked uncle cannot be found out and foiled before he does something wicked. Things must happen when it is time for them to happen. Quests may not simply be abandoned; prophecies may not be left to rot like unpicked fruit; unicorns may go unrescued for a very long time, but not forever. The happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story."
 * Ch. XIII

 * Prince Lír stood between her body and the Bull, weaponless, but with his hands up as though he thought he still held a sword and shield. Once more in that endless night the prince said, "No." He looked very foolish, and he was about to be trampled flat. The Red Bull could not see him, and would kill him without ever knowing that he had been in the way. Wonder and love and great sorrow shook Schmendrick the Magician then, and came together inside him and filled him, filled him until he felt himself brimming and flowing with something that was none of these. He did not believe it, but it came to him anyway, as it had touched him twice before and left him more barren than he had been. This time, there was too much of it for him to hold; it spilled through his fingers and toes, welled up equally in his eyes and his hair and the hollows of his shoulders. There was too much to hold — too much ever to use; and still he found himself weeping with the pain of his impossible greed. He thought, or said, or sang, I did not know that I was so empty, to be so full.
 * Ch. XIII

 * Then Schmendrick stepped out into the open and said a few words. They were short words, undistinguished either by melody or harshness, and Schmendrick himself could not hear them for the Red Bull's dreadful bawling. But he knew what they meant, and he knew exactly how to say them, and he knew that he could say them again when he wanted to, in the same way or in a different way. Now he spoke them gently and with joy, and as did so he felt his immortality fall from him like an armour, or like a shroud.
 * Ch. XIII

 * Your true task has just begun, and you may not know in your life if you have succeeded in it, but only if you fail.
 * Chap. XIV

 * As for you and your heart and the things you said and didn't say, she will remember them all when men are fairy tales in books written by rabbits.
 * Ch. XIV

 * "You are a true and mortal wizard now, as you always wished. Does it make you happy?" "Yes," he replied with a quiet laugh. "I'm not poor Haggard, to lose my heart's desire in the having of it. But there are wizards and wizards; there is black magic and white magic, and the infinite shades of gray between — and I see now that it is all the same. Whether I decide to be what men would call a wise and good magician — aiding heroes, thwarting witches, wicked lords, and unreasonable parents; making rain, curing woolsorter's disease and the mad staggers, getting cats down from trees — or whether I choose the retorts full of elixirs and essences, the powders and herbs and banes, the padlocked books of gramarye bound in skins better left unnamed, the muddy mist darkening in the chamber and the sweet voice lisping therein — why, life is short, and how many can I help or harm? I have my power at last, but the world is still too heavy for me to move, though my friend Lír might think otherwise." And he laughed again in his dream, a little sadly. The unicorn said, "That is true. You are a man, and men can do nothing that makes any difference." But her voice was strangely slow and burdened. She asked, "Which will you choose?" The magician laughed for a third time. "Oh, it will be the kind magic, undoubtedly, because you would like it more. I do not think that I will ever see you again, but I will try to do what would please you if you knew...."
 * Ch.XIV, The Unicorn and Schmendrick

 * My people are in the world again. No sorrow will live in my heart as long as that joy — save one, and I thank you for that, too. Farewell, good magician. I will try to go home.
 * Ch.XIV

Quotes about The Last Unicorn

 * Doing good, like love, cannot be valued for what it accomplishes, since the unicorn flatly declares, "You are a man, and men can do nothing that makes any difference." Loving and doing good must be chosen, as Lir and Schmendrick choose them, for the beauty and pleasure and wonder of doing good.
 * Harold Bloom, in a review of the novel in Twentieth-Century American Literature (1988)

 * In the long-ago year of 1968, post-Tolkien fantasy was just entering its first great bloom — suddenly you could find fantasy novels everywhere, old classics as well as bright new stuff. I bought The Last Unicorn because the cover was a lovely take on the medieval unicorn tapestries — I was unsure about the title, because it seemed a distinct possibility that it would be a sticky, fluffy, rhinestone sort of book and I didn't like those. I'd been introduced to fantasy through Tolkien and Mervyn Peake and E. R. Eddison, and I liked some power in my fantasy.  The Last Unicorn proceeded to run 220 volts through my little 110-volt brain.
 * The Greenman review

title: The Last Unicorn


text:
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