THE LESSER ARTS
P.34 : no, I cannot suppose there is anybody here who would think it
either a good life, or an amusing one, to sit with one’s hands before one
doing nothing — to live like a gentleman, as fools call it.
P.41 ; because it is not by accident that an idea comes into the heads of
a few ; rather they are pushed on, and forced to speak or act by something
stirring in the heart of the world which would otherwise be left without
expression.
P.54 I protest that it would be a shame to an honest artist to enjoy what
he had huddled up to himself of such art, as it would be for a rich man to
sit and eat dainty food amongst starving soldiers in a beleaguered fort.
I do not want art for a few, any more than education for a few, or freedom
for a few.
… I hope that we shall have leisure from war ; leisure
form the knowledge that darkens counsel ; leisure above all from the greed
of money, and the craving for that overwhelming distinction that money now
brings :I believe that as we have even now partly achieved Liberty, so we
shall one day achieve Equality, which, and which only, means Fraternity,
and so have leisure form poverty and all its griping, sordid cares.
P.56 It is a dream, you may say, of what has never been and never will be
; true, it has never been, and therefore, since the world is alive and
moving yet, my hope is the greater that it one day will be : true it is a
dream ; but dreams have before now come about of things so good and
necessary to us, that we scarcely think of them more than of the daylight,
though once people had to live without them, without even the hope of
them.
ART UNDER PLUTOCRACY
P.63 Yet civilisation, it seems to me, owes us some compensation for the
loss of this romance, which now only hangs like a dream about the country
life of busy lands. To keep the air pure and the rivers clean, to take
some pains to keep the meadows and tillage as pleasant as reasonable use
will allow them to be ; to allow peaceable citizens freedom to wander
where they will … But not a whit of it shall we get under the present
system of society.
P.65 At the same time I not only admit, but declare, and think it most
important to declare, that 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, civilisation will die.
P.66 For I am “one of the people called Socialists” ; therefore I am
certain that evolution in the economical conditions of life will go on,
whatever shadowy barriers may be drawn across its path by men whose
apparent self-interest blinds them, consciously or unconsciously, to the
preset, and who are therefore hopeless for the future.
P.67 Art is man’s expression of his joy in labour. … ; for if pleasure in
labour be generally possible, what a strange folly it must be for men to
consent to labour without pleasure ; and what a hideous injustice it must
be for society to compel most men to labour without pleasure!
P.68 … I will not say slaves, the word would not be strong enough, but
machines more or less conscious of their own unhappiness.
P.83 Can any of us doubt that, since there is unjust suffering? … Do you
doubt that if we had any time for it amidst our struggle to live we should
look into the title of those who kept us there, themselves rich and
comfortable, under the pretext that it was necessary to society?
P.85 Remember we have but one weapon against that terrible organisation of
selfishness which we attack, and that weapon is Union. Yes, and it should
be obvious union, which we can be conscious of as we mix with others who
are hostile or indifferent to the cause ; organised brotherhood is that
which must break the spell of anarchical Plutocracy. One man with an idea
in his head is in danger of being considered a madman ; two men with the
same idea in common may be foolish, but can hardly be mad ; ten men
sharing an idea begin to act, a hundred draw attention as fanatics, a
thousand and society begins to tremble, a hundred thousand and there is
war abroad, and the cause has victories tangible and real ; and why only a
hundred thousand? Why not a hundred million and peace upon the earth? You
and I who agree together, it is we who have to answer that question.
USEFUL WORKS VERSUS USELESS TOIL
P.89 For first, as to the class of rich people doing no work, we all know
that they consume a great deal while they produce nothing. Therefore,
clearly, they have to be kept at the expenses of those who do work, just
as paupers have, and are a mere burden on the community. In these days
there are many who have learned to see this, though they can see no
further into the evils of our present system, and have formed no idea of
any scheme for getting rid of this burden ; though perhaps they have a
vague hope that changes in the system of voting for members of the House
of Commons, may, as if by magic, tend in that direction.
P.102 Popular Art. This art, I repeat, no longer exists now, having been
killed by commercialism. But from the beginning of man’s contest with
Nature till the rise of the present capitalistic system, it was alive, and
generally flourished. While it lasted, everything that was made by man was
adorned by man, just as everything made by Nature is adorned bu her. The
craftsman, as he fashioned the thing he had under his hand, ornamented it
so naturally and so entirely without conscious effort, that it is often
difficult to distinguish where the mere utilitarian part of his work ended
and the ornamental began.
P.108 What the cost may be, who can tell? Will it be possible to win peace
peaceably? Alas, how can it be? We are so hemmed in by wrong and folly,
that in one way or other we must always be fighting against them : … ; and
we shall, in our hopes at least, live the lives of men : nor can the
present times give us any reward greater than that.
HOW WE LIVE AND HOW WE MIGHT LIVE
P.142 In short, there will be no waste and therefore no tyranny.
P.148 to rejoice in satisfying the due bodily appetites of a human animal
without fear of degradation or sense of wrongdoing : yes, and therewithal
to be well-formed, straight-limed, strongly knit, expressive of
countenance — to be, in a word, beautiful — that also I claim. If we
cannot have this claim satisfied, we are but poor creatures after all ;
and I claim it in the teeth of those terrible doctrines of asceticism,
which, born of the despair of the oppressed and degraded, have been for so
many ages used as instruments for the continuance of that oppression and
degradation.
P.157 Rather, however, take courage, and believe that we of this age, in
spite of all its torment and disorder, have been born to a wonderful
heritage fashioned of the work of those that have gone before us ; and
that the day of the organisation of man is dawning. It is not we who can
build up the new social order ; but we can clear our eyes to the signs of
the times, and we shall then see that the attainment of a good condition
of life is being made possible for us, and that it is now our business to
stretch out our hands to take it.
WHERE ARE WE NOW?
P.223 When I first joined the movement I hoped that some working-man
leader, or rather leaders, would turn up, who would push aside all
middle-class help, and become great historical figures. I might still hope
for that, if it seemed likely to happen, for indeed I long for it enough ;
but to speak plainly it does not so seem at present.
… Methods of realisation, therefore, are now more before our eyes than
ideals : but it is of no use talking about methods which are not, in part
at least, immediately feasible, and it is of the nature of such partial
methods to be sordid and discouraging though they may be necessary.
P.225 Now it seems to me that at such a time, when people are not only
discontented, but have really conceived a hope of bettering the condition
of labour, while at the same time the means towards their end are doubtful
: or, rather, when they take the very beginning of the means as an end in
itself : that this time when people are excited about Socialism, and when
many who know nothing about it think themselves Socialists, is the time of
all others to put forward the simple principles of Socialism regardless of
the policy of the passing hour.
COMMUNISM
P.233 But I must hope that we can instil into the mass of people some
spirit of expectation, however vague, beyond the needs of the year ; and I
know that many who are on the road to socialism will from the first and
habitually look toward the realisation of the society of equality, and try
to realise it for themselves — I mean they will at least try to think what
equality will turn out to be, and will long for it above all things.
… for between complete Socialism and Communism there is no
difference whatever in my mind. Communism is in fact the completion of
Socialism : when that ceases to be militant and become triumphant, it will
be communism.
P.235 For what is waste? First, the causeless destruction of raw material
; and secondly, the diverting of labour from useful production.
HOW I BECAME A SOCIALIST
P.241 Well, 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 brain-sick brain workers, nor
heart-sick 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 COMMON WEALTH.