The Possibilities of the Useful by Oscar Wilde

There are two kinds of men in the world, two great creeds, two different / forms of natures: men to whom the end of life is action, and men to whom / the end of life is thought. As regards the latter, who seek for / experience itself and not for the fruits of experience, who must burn / always with one of the passions of this fiery-coloured world, who find / life interesting not for its secret but for its situations, for its / pulsations and not for its purpose; the passion for beauty engendered by / the decorative arts will be to them more satisfying than any political or / religious enthusiasm, any enthusiasm for humanity, any ecstasy or sorrow / for love. For art comes to one professing primarily to give nothing but / the highest quality to one's moments, and for those moments' sake. So / far for those to whom the end of life is thought. As regards the others, / who hold that life is inseparable from labour, to them should this / movement be specially dear: for, if our days are barren without industry, / industry without art is barbarism.

Hewers of wood and drawers of water there must be always indeed among us. / Our modern machinery has not much lightened the labour of man after all: / but at least let the pitcher that stands by the well be beautiful and / surely the labour of the day will be lightened: let the wood be made / receptive of some lovely form, some gracious design, and there will come / no longer discontent but joy to the toiler. For what is decoration but / the worker's expression of joy in his work? And not joy merely -- that is / a great thing yet not enough -- but that opportunity of expressing his own / individuality which, as it is the essence of all life, is the source of / all art. 'I have tried,' I remember William Morris saying to me once, 'I / have tried to make each of my workers an artist, and when I say an artist / I mean a man. ' For the worker then, handicraftsman of whatever kind he / is, art is no longer to be a purple robe woven by a slave and thrown over / the whitened body of a leprous king to hide and to adorn the sin of his / luxury, but rather the beautiful and noble expression of a life that has / in it something beautiful and noble. -- _The English Renaissance of Art_.