Source identified1
“Thus at last and by slow degrees we got pleasure into our work; then we became conscious of that pleasure, and cultivated it”
Voice: Fictional character · Old Hammond
The fictional speaker describes improvement as gradual: better workmanship leads to recognized pleasure, which is then deliberately cultivated rather than appearing instantly or automatically.
Source note: News from Nowhere, Old Hammond’s historical explanation of the utopian society; Project Gutenberg #3261. This is fictional dialogue, not a direct autobiographical maxim by Morris.
Source identified2
“men who had at last learned to accept life itself as a pleasure, and the satisfaction of the common needs of mankind and the preparation for them, as work fit for the best of the race.”
Voice: Fictional narrator · William Guest
The narrator describes a society in which ordinary shared needs are treated as worthy work and life itself is approached as something to participate in rather than merely endure.
Source note: News from Nowhere, narrator William Guest observing Morsom’s community; Project Gutenberg #3261. This is narrative description inside a utopian novel.
Source identified3
“the freedom for every man to do what he can do best, joined to the knowledge of what productions of labour we really wanted. I must admit that this knowledge we reached slowly and painfully.”
Voice: Fictional character · Old Hammond
Old Hammond connects useful work with discovering strengths and social needs, while explicitly describing that knowledge as something learned gradually through difficulty.
Source note: News from Nowhere, Old Hammond speaking; Project Gutenberg #3261. The passage is part of Morris’s fictional utopian social argument.