R. M. Williams Quotes
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We are sculptures in the making, just begun by the great Artist; not yet formed but indicative of what is to come.
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No man can judge before the end.
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I have seen lightning light fires in the long grass ahead of me as I have ridden. No wonder the Aborigines tremble when the sky rumbles!
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The centre of Australia is a land almost without dew, therefore comfortable, and in spite of it’s dry bulldust, clean to those who know how to keep clean in it.
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If I didn't do this I'd sit back and die. I was a prisoner in my own castle.
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The adventure that might be encountered in any life that keeps as guidelines the rules governing the human spirit.
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It was the horse and buggy days... horses were our life.
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My book on leather-plaiting, first prepared more than fifty years ago, has been circulating in increasing numbers and many enthusiasts have come to me personally to have the knots demonstrated when they have found it difficult to learn from diagrams. I feel guilty that very little of the knowledge accumulated through a lifetime is in print, especially some of the more intricate knots which I find hard to illustrate.
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Any manual skill gives its practitioner much personal pleasure, particularly when it is one that admits of constant improvement.
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It was only ever an experience in making a dollar. The company was only ever a small part of my life. I've done a lot of things that have given me greater pleasure.
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Expediency has marked the road down which I have walked to dubious success, and always the pirate, the rebel, has shouted his advice over my shoulder while the faintest of lights pointed out a dim way.
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Make sure you use Scobie whips…
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We're slightly more honest, we're a little more honourable, I hope, and we have a national feeling of pride in being Australians…
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We finished up making a pair of boots and they were quite unique…
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It's a long hard struggle from nothing to something if you're starting off with nothing, especially if you're raising a family.
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The mastery of those Aboriginals over their environment has been the inspiration of my life. I would like to be the master of my environment as they are of theirs. I think I have gone a long way towards that, but not nearly far enough. I have a tremendous respect for them.
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Don’t make your story too big. I don’t want you big-noting me.
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We finished up making a pair of boots and they were quite unique, but the fact that they were unique, one piece of leather moulded to make a boot, instead of a lot of pieces, took the imagination of the bush people and they became very popular with the bushmen who liked the idea of bush boots being made by a bushman for bushmen. It took on and, you know, from that there's been a million pairs sold or more, eh?
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Superior craftsmen in any trade will never be short of work.
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I didn't do a Bondy. We didn't produce anything new, just things that were in the Australian tradition - but better and stronger. Beyond the ideas I can't take any credit for the growth of the business. The kids were responsible. I was too busy with cattle and gold.
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In this world of opportunity every youngster today could get employment if he or she learned some specialized trade, some skill, some ability.
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What is it that they say about the winter of our discontent? Those were my years of misbehaving. I just had too much money. I was in Paris, London and New York all the time. I had the best of everything, but I was so unhappy.
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The smithy was also used for welding. Everything was hot-welded in those days; there was no such process as oxy-welding.
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I felt at once that the job was not for me, and stayed in it less than a week…