R. M. Williams Quotes
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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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The urge to get out and go it alone must be strong in most people, for the spirit of man answers to the blood of his ancestors.
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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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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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[In the 1930s] I got a muscleman to toughen up my body, and especially thicken my neck, so I could withstand the battering I knew I’d get in life.
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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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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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Dad’s home was more of a depot for his operations than a farm or a station. His life was centred on the horse business. He stabled his horses in a long open-fronted building with pillars. There were no stalls for them, just a long trough at the back where the stable was attached to the barn.
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It was the horse and buggy days... horses were our life.
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Superior craftsmen in any trade will never be short of work.
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A man must look to the muddy pit wherefrom was taken the clay that moulds him.
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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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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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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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My father was a horsemen and had to supply teams to the people who work the agricultural areas, wool and that sort of thing so horses were our life.
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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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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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In a world that is supposedly over-producing I find that good of the better class are still in short supply…
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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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[On his father] He was a man of another age, really, holding a set of values that differed in essence from those that most men hold today. The son of a pioneer settler, he grew up believing along with most of the men of his world that a man’s physical strength was his measure.
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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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I’ve got to go and check my stock.
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We finished up making a pair of boots and they were quite unique…
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You’d better come early son because I’ve got a lot of work to do on the property and don’t want to get behind.