Westminster Abbey Quotes

I mean, you can't walk down the aisle in Westminster Abbey in a strapless dress, it just won't happen - it has to suit the grandeur of that aisle, it's enormous. ~ Bruce Oldfield

Because obviously she was the most qualified for the position. At long last Edward had arrived at the enlightened state of knowing that a woman could do a job just as well as a man. Yep. That's how it happened. Edward abdicated his throne. Elizabeth would be crowned queen at Westminster Abbey that same week, and we all know she'd be the best ruler of England ever. And now history can more or less pick up along the same path where we left it. ~ Cynthia Hand

When the Bolide Fragmentation Rate shot up through a certain level on Day 701, marking the formal beginning of the White Sky, a number of cultural organizations launched programs that they had been planning since around the time of the Crater Lake announcement. Many of these were broadcast on shortwave radio, and so Ivy had her pick of programs from Notre Dame, Westminster Abbey, St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, Tiananmen Square, the Potala Palace, the Great Pyramids, the Wailing Wall.

After sampling all of them she locked her radio dial on Notre Dame, where they were holding the Vigil for the End of the World and would continue doing so until the cathedral fell down in ruins upon the performers' heads and extinguished all life in the remains of the building. She couldn't watch it, since video bandwidth was scarce, but she could imagine it well: the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, its ranks swollen by the most prestigious musicians of the Francophone world, all dressed in white tie and tails, ball gowns and tiaras, performing in shifts around the clock, playing a few secular classics but emphasizing the sacred repertoire: masses and requiems. The music was marred by the occasional thud, which she took to be the sonic booms of incoming bolides. In most cases the musicians played right through. Sometimes a singer would skip a beat. An especially big boom produced screams and howls of dismay from the audience, blended with the clank an ~ Neal Stephenson

Neither the Temple of Solomon, the Second Temple, Mount Gerizim, nor Jerusalem itself replace the existential awareness of God within the soul. Likewise, the ornate sanctuaries of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome, Saint Basil's Cathedral in Moscow, neither Westminster Abbey in London, nor Saint Patrick's Cathedral in New York contain the Holy Spirit without the faith of their congregants. ~ James Mikolajczyk

It is eerie being all but alone in Westminster Abbey. Without the tourists, there are only the dead, many of them kings and queens. They speak powerfully and put my thoughts into vivid perspective. ~ A. N. Wilson

In the year 1257, an elephant died in the Tower menagerie and was buried in a pit near the chapel. But the following year he was dug up and his remains sent to Westminster Abbey. Now, what did they want at Westminster Abbey, with the remains of an elephant? If not to carve a ton of relics out of him, and make his animal bones into the bones of saints? ~ Hilary Mantel

They bear down upon Westminster, the ghost-consecrated Abbey, and the history-crammed Hall, through the arches of the bridge with a rush as the tide swelters round them; the city is buried in a dusky gloom save where the lights begin to gleam and trail with lurid reflections past black velvety- looking hulls - a dusky city of golden gleams. St. Paul's looms up like an immense bowl reversed, squat, un-English, and undignified in spite of its great size; they dart within the sombre shadows of the Bridge of Sighs, and pass the Tower of London, with the rising moon making the sky behind it luminous, and the crowd of shipping in front appear like a dense forest of withered pines, and then mooring their boat at the steps beyond, with a shuddering farewell look at the eel-like shadows and the glittering lights of that writhing river, with its burthen seen and invisible, they plunge into the purlieus of Wapping.
("The Phantom Model") ~ Hume Nisbet

PRIMATE, n. The head of a church, especially a State church supported by involuntary contributions. The Primate of England is the Archbishop of Canterbury, an amiable old gentleman, who occupies Lambeth Palace when living and Westminster Abbey when dead. He is commonly dead. ~ Ambrose Bierce

I know they'll take their knitting with them everywhere. They simply couldn't be parted from it. They will walk about Westminster Abbey and knit, I feel sure. ~ L.M. Montgomery

On a very gloomy dismal day, just such a one as it ought to be, I went to see Westminster Abbey. ~ Karl Philipp Moritz

He who is faithful over a few things is a lord of cities. It does not matter whether you preach in Westminster Abbey or teach a ragged class, so you be faithful. The faithfulness is all. ~ George MacDonald

Commemorative stone in the floor of the Chapel of St. George in Westminster Abbey, London, dedicated in 1947: TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT Baden-Powell CHIEF SCOUT OF THE WORLD 1857-1941 Upon one side of the stone was the badge of the Boy Scouts, the arrow-head to point the true way as it had pointed the way for sailors and navigators from the time of the earliest maps; and on the other the badge of the Girl Guides-the three-leafed clover. ~ Robert Baden-Powell

Westminster Abbey, the Tower, a steeple, one church, and then another, presented themselves to our view; and we could now plainly distinguish the high round chimneys on the tops of the houses, which yet seemed to us to form an innumerable number of smaller spires, or steeples. ~ Karl Philipp Moritz

Westminster Abbey is nature crystallized into a conventional form by man, with his sorrows, his joys, his failures, and his seeking for the Great Spirit. It is a frozen requiem, with a nation's prayer ever in dumb music ascending. ~ M. E. W. Sherwood

The only place that's holier than St. Andrews is Westminster Abbey. ~ Sam Snead

The Seven Social Sins are:

Wealth without work.
Pleasure without conscience.
Knowledge without character.
Commerce without morality.
Science without humanity.
Worship without sacrifice.
Politics without principle.


From a sermon given by Frederick Lewis Donaldson in Westminster Abbey, London, on March 20, 1925. ~ Frederick Lewis Donaldson

I go to see my kids in school plays, ... I watched Lorna in a concert at the Westminster College of Music the other day and it was amazing. I felt very proud and surprised. I don't know why I was surprised, because I've known her for 17 years, but I've never seen her do anything like that in front of an audience. It's brave, it's uplifting. ~ Sean Bean

In clear-cutting, he said, you clear away the natural forest, or what the industrial forester calls "weed trees," and plant all one species of tree in neat straight functional rows like corn, sorghum, sugar beets or any other practical farm crop. You then dump on chemical fertilizers to replace the washed-away humus, inject the seedlings with growth-forcing hormones, surround your plot with deer repellants and raise a uniform crop of trees, all identical. When the trees reach a certain prespecified height (not maturity; that takes too long) you send in a fleet of tree-harvesting machines and cut the fuckers down. All of them. Then burn the slash, and harrow, seed, fertilize all over again, round and round and round again, faster and faster, tighter and tighter until, like the fabled Malaysian Concentric Bird which flies in ever-smaller circles, you disappear up your own asshole. ~ Edward Abbey

'Downton Abbey' has become this huge thing, and I really enjoy the success of it, but I sometimes find myself on the outside looking in, which is sort of a healthy way to look at it so you don't get too caught up in it. ~ Michelle Dockery

But I've been there and done that. I'm not trying to prove anything to anybody, and if somebody wants me to come, if they can afford what I ask, it's not as much as Madonna makes; not that I want what Madonna makes, but I was saying. ~ Abbey Lincoln

Out there in the middle of the maelstrom the Eater awaits, heaving and gulping, its mouth like a giant clam's . . . its mind a frenzy of beige-colored rapid foam. A horrifying uproar, all things considered. Imagine floating through that nonsense in a life jacket. - EDWARD ABBEY ~ Kevin Fedarko

You can never go wrong cuttin' fence,' repeated Smith, warming to his task. (Pling!) "Always cut fence. That's the law west of the 100th meridian. East of that don't matter none. Back there it's all lost anyhow. But west, we cut fence,' (Plang!) ~ Edward Abbey

Let the people walk. Or ride horses, bicycles, mules, wild pigs-anything-but keep the automobiles and the motorcycles and all their motorized relatives out. We have agreed not to drive our automobiles into cathedrals, concert halls, art museums, legislative assemblies, private bedrooms and other sanctums of our culture; we should treat our national parks with the same deference, for they, too, are holy places. ~ Edward Abbey

Life is a bitch, his dark companion said–and then you die. Not so cried Henry! Life is a glorious shining and splendid adventure, and then you die. ~ Edward Abbey

I'm a firm believer in only getting involved in things you're passionate about. ~ Abbey Clancy

Vonnegut is one of America's basic artists, a true and worthy heir to the grand tradition of Thoreau, Whitman, Twain, Dreiser, Traven, Tom Wolfe (the real Tom Wolfe, I mean) and Steinbeck. In other words, he writes out of a concern for justice, love, honesty, and hope. ~ Edward Abbey

I've lived in a flat in Westminster in London for over 20 years; and I also have a house in the country, down in Somerset, so I have the best of both worlds. ~ Marti Webb

The one thing ... that is truly ugly is the climate of hate and intimidation, created by a noisy few, which makes the decent majority reluctant to air in public their views on anything controversial ... Where all pretend to be thinking alike, it's likely that no one is thinking at all. ~ Edward Abbey

What do we know? What do we really know? He licks his dried cracked lips. We know this apodictic rock beneath our feet. That dogmatic sun above our heads. The world of dreams, the agony of love and the foreknowledge of death. That is all we know. And all we need to know? Challenge that statement. I challenge that statement. With what? I don't know. ~ Edward Abbey

You want me to have feelings?" he said. "I already told you that I love you. What else should I say? That I long to be near you every second of every day? I see colors, only around you ... I smell perfume, only around you. God, it's like ... like I'm alive again. Sometimes I go crazy just wondering if I imagined it all, and I wait to see when it ... you ... will be taken away from me."
"I feel all these things, Abbey," he continued on. "Rage that I can't run my fingers through your hair. Sorrow that I can't lay my face next to yours. Agony that I can't steal the breath from your lips. I can't eat or breathe or sleep for wanting to touch you, and yet I don't eat or breathe or sleep. I'm just here. Stuck in between. ~ Jessica Verday

The best thing about graduating from the university was that I finally had time to sit on a log and read a good book. ~ Edward Abbey

'Downton Abbey' is one of my favourite shows ever - it's just beautifully filmed, and the stories and characters are so wonderful. ~ Amanda Donohoe

We always used to think it didn't matter, that when you mined out one area, or farmed it out, or overgrazed it, you could move to new country beyond the hills, keep moving West. But there are no new places to go anymore. The land is full. We have to stay where we are, take care of what we have. There isn't going to be anything else. ~ Edward Abbey

A good short-story writer has an instinct for sketching in just enough background to ground the specific story. ~ Lynn Abbey

Industrialism, whether of the capitalist or socialist coloration, is the
basic tyrant of the modern age. ~ Edward Abbey

Vaughan Telecom installers and contractors ensure the highest quality service for data and network cabling in Toronto and GTA area. ~ Edward Abbey

I'm a humanist; I'd rather kill a man than a snake. ~ Edward Abbey

The world of employer and employee, like that of master and slave, debases both. ~ Edward Abbey

Road - tomorrow?" Myron asked. "Am I going back to the abbey?"
"Better - you're going to be a hero. ~ Michael J. Sullivan

The city, which should be the symbol and center of civilization, can also be made to function as a concentration camp. This is one of the significant discoveries of contemporary political science. ~ Edward Abbey

Editors of open anthologies actively seek submissions from all comers, established and unknown. They are willing to read whatever the tide washes up at their feet. ~ Lynn Abbey

Perhaps if this abbey exists and if we still speak of the Holy Roman Empire, we owe it to the Irish. At that time, the rest of Europe was reduced to a heap of ruins; one day they declared invalid all baptisms imparted by certain priests in Gaul because they baptized 'in nomine patris et filae' [In the name of the Father and of the Daughter]--and not because they practiced a new heresy and considered Jesus a woman, but because they no longer knew any Latin....

Vikings from the Far North came down along the rivers to sack Rome. The pagan temples were falling into ruins, and the Christian ones did not yet exist. It was only the monks of Hibernia in their monasteries who wrote and read, read and wrote, and illuminated, and then jumped into little boats made of animal hide and navigated towards these lands and evangelized them as if you people were infidels, you understand? ~ Umberto Eco

Why administrators are respected and schoolteachers are not: An administrator is paid a lot for doing very little, while a teacher is paid very little for doing a lot. ~ Edward Abbey

Our big social institutions do not reflect human nature; they distort it. ~ Edward Abbey

That we manifest our approbation of the Westminster Assembly's Catechism, as containing an excellent system of divinity; and we purpose to preach agreeably to the doctrines of the Bible exhibited therein. ~ Jonathan Edwards

Nature is indifferent to our love, but never unfaithful. ~ Edward Abbey

All we have, it seems to me, is the beauty of art and nature and life, and the love which that beauty inspires. ~ Edward Abbey

Humans were free before the word freedom became necessary. ~ Edward Abbey

I have not watched WAGs World, I have not watched the BBC's Upstairs, Downstairs, either. It would be Downton Abbey, I think. ~ Theresa May

Marvelously clear-fretted in the unsmoked air, the Abbey rose, silver-grey. It stood detached by the serenity of age from the ephemeral growths around it. It was solid on a foundation of centuries, destined, perhaps, for centuries yet to preserve within it the monuments to those whose work was now all destroyed. I did not loiter there. In years to come I expect some will go o look at the old Abbey with romantic melancholy. But romance of that kind is an alloy of tragedy with retrospect. I was too close. ~ John Wyndham

What is love worth in this broken world? Nothing!" he spat. "Absolutely nothing. Love won't feed you. Love won't rescue you from starvation. Grow up, Abbey. I didn't raise you to be half-witted and so mentally defective. ~ Dan C. Thompson

The clergy are, practically, the most irresponsible of all talkers.
["Evangelical Teaching: Dr. Cumming," The Westminster Review, 1885.] ~ George Eliot

One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork. ~ Edward Abbey