The Archbishop of Canterbury - The Rt Revd Rowan Williams is the most senior bishop in the established church in England and the leader of the Anglican Communion around the world. These pages cover his biography, writings, role, office and palace (Lambeth), and contain press releases and information about his predecessors.
Dimbleby Lecture - Delivered by Dr Rowan Williams on 19th December 2002. Has come to be seen as a marker establishing Williams as challenging current morality, especially that of politics. "...there are periods when the overall worthwhileness of a system begins to look a lot less persuasive, sometimes quite rapidly, and things start to change." Full text.
"When you have nothing to say, say nothing." (Charles Caleb Colton) "I have the terrible feeling that, because I am wearing a white beard and am sitting in the back of the theatre, you expect me to tell you the truth about something. These are the cheap seats, not Mou Infatuation is when you think that he's as sexy as Robert Redford, as smart as Henry Kissinger,
as noble as Ralph Nader, as funny as Woody Allen, and as athletic as Jimmy Conners. Love is
when you r Multimedia? As far as I'm concerned, it's reading with the radio on!
-- Rory Bremner "It is far better to be alone, than to be in bad company." (George Washington) Williams, Archbishop Rowan "God is a gentleman. He prefers blondes." (Joe Orton, Loot) I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting.
-- Mark Twain True, we love life, not because we are used to living, but because we are used to loving. There is
always some madness in love, but there is also always some reason in madness.
-- Friedrich Nietzsch Williams, Archbishop Rowan
The Bible contains six admonishments to homosexuals and 362 admonishments to
heterosexuals. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love heterosexuals. It's just that they need
more supervision.
-- Lynn "One of the great dangers in having a career is getting bored." (Itzhak Perlman) Is it better for a woman to marry a man who loves her than a man she loves.
-- Anonymous blah "Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together." (Vincent van Gogh) "So little done, so much to do." (Cecil Rhodes) Williams, Archbishop Rowan "What a curious phenomenon it is that you can get men to die for the liberty of the world who will not make the little sacrifice that is needed to free themselves from their own individual bondage." Wise men make proverbs, but fools repeat them.
- Samuel Palmer At the bottom no one in life can help anyone else in life; this one experiences over and over in
every conflict and every perplexity: that one is alone. That isn't as bad as it may first appear; and Williams, Archbishop Rowan
blah blah blah blah blah "This is the way the world ends: not with a bang, but a whimper." (Thomas Stearns Eliot, aka T. S. Eliot) _end]
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"Hello Kitty is an icon that doesn't stand for a "The order of the world is always right - such is the judgment of God. For God has departed, but he has left his judgment behind, the way the Cheshire Cat left his grin." (Jean Baudrillard) This novel is not to be tossed lightly aside, but hurled with great force.
-- Dorothy Parker History repeats itself; that's one of the things that's wrong with history.
-- Clarence Darrow "Do something for the joy of doing it and pray you won't be punished." (Sammy Cahn) Williams, Archbishop Rowan "Give me liberty or give me death." (Patrick Henry) Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly.
-- Rose Franken Education is the state-controlled manufacture of echoes.
-- Norman Douglas Williams, Archbishop Rowan
To expect defeat is nine-tenths of defeat itself.
-- Francis Crawford Love is an ocean of emotions entirely surrounded by expenses.
-- Lord Dewar Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside
desperate to get out.
-- Michel de Montaigne English Law prohibits a man from marrying his mother-in-law. This is our idea of useless legislation. Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though it is hard to
realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and
grie Williams, Archbishop Rowan "The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisi If a man is considered guilty for what goes on in his mind, give me the electric chair for all my
future crimes.
-- Prince "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." (Emma Lazarus) Williams, Archbishop Rowan
"Use what talents you possess; The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best." (William Blake) His ignorance is encyclopedic
- Abba Eban "My daughter has never forgiven me. for what, I don't know, because for years, she won't speak to me. She blackens my name in the press and makes me think abortion is an excellent idea." (Klaus Kinsk Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
-- Frank L. Visco, How to Write Good Working mothers are guinea pigs in a scientific experiment to show that sleep is not necessary to human life. Williams, Archbishop Rowan An undefined problem has an infinite number of solutions.
-- Robert A. Humphrey Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
-- B.F. Skinner "How wondrous familiar is a fool!" (Herman Melville, Moby Dick) Williams, Archbishop Rowan
If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?
-- Albert Einstein Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for the appointment by the corrupt few.
-- George Bernard Shaw "This is slavery, not to speak one's thought." (Euripides) Correction: Instead of being arrested, as we stated, for kicking his wife down a flight of stairs and hurling a lighted kerosene lamp after her, the Rev. James P. Wellman died unmarried four years ago The weirder you're going to behave, the more normal you should look. It works in reverse, too.
When I see a kid with three or four rings in his nose, I know there is absolutely nothing
extraordinary Williams, Archbishop Rowan Mathematics transfigures the fortuitous concourse of atoms into the tracery of the finger of God.
-- Herbert Westren Turnbull A man in the house is worth two in the street.
-- Mae West "What is most appealing about young folks, after all, is the changes, not the still photograph of finished character but the movie, the soul in flux." (Thomas Pynchon) Williams, Archbishop Rowan
The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.
-- Winston Churchill "Dying is the most embarrassing thing that can ever happen to you, because someone's got to take care of all your details." (Andy Warhol, America, 1985) Love cures people, both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it.
-- Dr. Karl Menninger The time is always right to do what is right.
-- Martin Luther King, Jr. Diplomat: A man who can convince his wife she would look stout in a fur coat. Williams, Archbishop Rowan "Careful?! Was my mother careful when she stabbed me in the heart with a coat hanger while I was still in the womb?" (Trey Parker) Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it
- Henry David Thoreau I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart.
- e e cummings Williams, Archbishop Rowan
It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.
-- Mark Twain Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end.
-- Igor Stravinsky If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.
-- Maya Angelou "The great aim of education is not knowledge but action." (Herbert Spencer) A woman has got to love a bad man once or twice in her life to be thankful for a good one.
-- Mae West Williams, Archbishop Rowan Marriage is like a violin. After the music is over, you still have the strings.
-- Anonymous Public office is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
-- Boies Penrose, 1931 [You reporters] should have printed what he meant, not what he said.
-- Earl Bush, press aide to Richard Daley Williams, Archbishop Rowan
Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and
joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me. To see reality--not
as "Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent." (Napoleon Bonaparte) "If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat." (Mark Twain) "Everyone is a bore to someone. That is unimportant. The thing to avoid is being a bore to oneself." (Gerald Brenan) "An able man shows his spirit by gentle words and resolute actions; he is neither hot nor timid." (Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, 4th earl of) Williams, Archbishop Rowan By working faithfully eight hours a day, you might eventually get to be a boss and work twelve
hours a day.
-- ROBERT FROST Laundry increases exponentially in the number of children.
-- Miriam Robbins I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is; I only know that people call
me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.
-- Rebecca West, Williams, Archbishop Rowan
Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.
-- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Cat's Cradle Never marry for money. Ye'll borrow it cheaper.
-- Scottish Proverb Creativity is piercing the mundane to find the marvelous.
-- Bill Moyers If you are afraid of loneliness, do not marry. -- Chekhov Anyone nit-picking enough to write a letter of correction to an editor doubtless deserves the error
that provoked it.
-- Alvin Toffler Williams, Archbishop Rowan Opportunity may knock only once, but temptation leans on the doorbell.
-- Anonymous By working faithfully eight hours a day, you might eventually get to be a boss and work twelve
hours a day.
-- ROBERT FROST The possibility that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause
we believe to be just.
-- Abraham Lincoln Williams, Archbishop Rowan
You have to walk carefully in the beginning of love; the running across fields into your lover's
arms can only come later when you're sure they won't laugh if you trip.
-- Jonathan Carroll, Outside We are the echo of the future.
-- W. S. Merwin "Ah! Don't say you agree with me. When people agree with me I always feel that I must be wrong." (Oscar Wilde) Learn to laugh at your troubles and you'll never run out of things to laugh at.
-- Lyn Karol A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship.
- John D. Rockefeller Williams, Archbishop Rowan I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.
- Thomas Jefferson Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.
-- Aaron Levenstein Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
-- George Bernard Shaw Williams, Archbishop Rowan
