Amazing Grace (2006)

Ioan Gruffudd: William Wilberforce

Photos 

Quotes 

• William Wilberforce : It's God. I have 10,000 engagements of state today but I would prefer to spend the day out here getting a wet arse, studying dandelions and marveling at... bloody spider's webs.

  Richard the Butler : You found God, sir?

  William Wilberforce : I think He found me. You have any idea how inconvenient that is? How idiotic it will sound? I have a political career glittering ahead of me, and in my heart I want spider's webs.

  Richard the Butler : [sitting down next to WW]  "It is a sad fate for a man to die too well known to everybody else and still unknown to himself." Francis Bacon. I don't just dust your books, sir.

• Pitt the Younger : Why is it you only feel the thorns in your feet when you stop running?

  William Wilberforce : Is that some sort of heavy-handed metaphorical advice for me, Mr. Pitt?

  Pitt the Younger : Yes, I suppose it is. You must keep going. Keep going fast.

• William Wilberforce : Ladies and Gentlemen, this is a slave ship. The Madagascar. It has just returned from the Indies where it delivered 200 men, women and children to Jamaica. When it left Africa, there were 600 on board. The rest died of disease or despair. That smell - is the smell of death. Slow, painful death. Breath it in. Breath it deeply. Take those handkerchiefs away from your noses! There, now. Remember that smell. Remember the Madagascar! Remember, that God made men equal.

• William Wilberforce : No one of our age has ever taken power.

  Pitt the Younger : Which is why we're too young to realize certain things are impossible. So, we will do them anyway.

• John Newton : [reciting his song]  "I once was blind but now I see". Didn't I write that?

  William Wilberforce : Yes, you did.

  John Newton : Now at last it's true.

• Pitt the Younger : As your Prime Minister, I urge you caution

  William Wilberforce : And as my friend?

  Pitt the Younger : To hell with caution.

• Duke of Clarence : Revolution is like the pox. It spreads from person to person.

  William Wilberforce : I bow to my honorable friend's superior knowledge and experience in all matters regarding the pox.

• William Wilberforce : No matter how loud you shout, you will not drown out the voice of the people!

  Lord Tarleton : People?

• William Wilberforce : I thought time might have changed you.

  John Newton : It has. I'm older.

• William Wilberforce : You wake me up to give me medicine to help me sleep?

• Henry Thornton : Come, we're late.

  William Wilberforce : The water has been here a million years, how can we be late?

• William Wilberforce : [Fox walks in unexpectedly]  Dear God.

  Lord Charles Fox : Well, almost. I spent eighteen months being torn apart by you in the House, Mr. Wilberforce. I thought I'd find out what it feels like to be on your side. I see you've got plenty of food. Any of you saints drink?

  Thomas Clarkson : Well, this one bloody does!

• Thomas Clarkson : [to the baby in his arms]  "Strange treasures in this fair world appear, strange all, and new to me." That is a poem by Thomas Traherne and I have absolutely no idea what it's about. But, when I was small I was made to learn it by heart so I don't see why you shouldn't suffer too.

  William Wilberforce : [calling]  Clarkson! Clarkson!

  Thomas Clarkson : Good God, he's got his voice back.

• William Wilberforce : Also, Barbara and I have discovered that we're both impatient and prone to rash decisions. But she wants to tell you about it herself.

• William Wilberforce : [after Pitt beats him running]  It's my ministerial duty to let you win.

• Marianne Thornton : What time did Barbara leave?

  William Wilberforce : Late. I mean early.

• William Wilberforce : They only told me your sight was fading.

  John Newton : Well, now it's faded altogether. I never do things by halves. God decided I'd seen enough.

• Pitt the Younger : We cracked crowns, didn't we?

  William Wilberforce : We left the heads intact.

  Pitt the Younger : Because we're so pathetically English.

• Pitt the Younger : You act like you've never seen slavery before.

  William Wilberforce : For me, it's like arsenic. Each new tiny dose doubles the effect.

• Thomas Clarkson : Beautiful house. Sweet, little... rabbit.

  William Wilberforce : It's a hare actually.

• William Wilberforce : I'm against flowers in church. What have you to say?

  Barbara Spooner : I am *for* them.

  William Wilberforce : [both pause] 

  William Wilberforce : [resignedly]  As am I.

• William Wilberforce : Oh, if the House of Lords could hear the idiotic way we carry on, they'd ban anyone under the age of 30 from holding high office again.

• William Wilberforce : Remember that God made men equal.

• Thomas Clarkson : Why did you wait until your butler had left before you got out of the box?

  William Wilberforce : They already think I'm mad.

• William Wilberforce : We just have to have faith in his integrity.

  Lord Charles Fox : Integrity?

  William Wilberforce : Where are you going?

  Lord Charles Fox : To look up the word integrity in Dr. Johnson's Dictionary.

• William Wilberforce : Mr. Wilberforce, I understand that you have an interest in botany.

  William Wilberforce : Botany, Miss Spooner? What makes you think I would have interest in something as tedious as botany?

  [pause, then snorts. Both Barbara and Wilberforce choke with laughter] 

  William Wilberforce : [to the concerned people at the table]  Sorry, it's a private joke.

• John Newton : Besides, people like you too much to let you live a life of solitude.

  William Wilberforce : Haven't you chosen solitude?

  John Newton : You of all people should know I can never be alone.

• William Wilberforce : An imperfect order is better than no order at all.

  Thomas Clarkson : No! We must fight for a perfect order!

• William Wilberforce : [Quoting Olaudah Equiano]  Am I not a man - whose soul is drawn to heaven like water from the dark well of Africa?

• William Wilberforce : So the people have their compassion back.

  Barbara Spooner : And you still have passion! That matters more!

• Pitt the Younger : Is that the main course?

  William Wilberforce : No. It's the Duke of Clarence.

• William Wilberforce : You're dressing very simply these days.

  John Newton : I'm a simple man.

• William Wilberforce : This is why I really shouldn't talk about it.

  Barbara Spooner : I think you should.

  [pause] 

  Barbara Spooner : There, we found something we don't agree on.

• William Wilberforce : Perhaps we should begin this journey with a first step.

• William Wilberforce : God has set before me two great objects.

• William Wilberforce : I never change.

  Pitt the Younger : Well, hurrah for you.

• James Stephen : Don't I get to wash or sleep?

  William Wilberforce : Sleep?

  James Stephen : You haven't changed at all, William!

• William Wilberforce : It's only painful to talk about because we haven't changed anything.

• [first lines] 

  William Wilberforce : Stop a moment!

• Henry Thornton : It is almost a scientific fact that marriage and health are twins - inseparable. Single men whither away and die in rooms that smell of feet and armpits.

  William Wilberforce : Henry, what are you babbling on about?

  Henry Thornton : Love, Wilberforce.

• William Wilberforce : I do not need you or anyone else to find a wife for me!

• William Wilberforce : I'll never forgive him.

  Barbara Spooner : I'll never forgive her.

• Duke of Clarence : I bought a nigger in Port of Spain. He eats better than I do; so, he's as strong as an ox. He'd fetch at least 25 guineas at the West India dock.

  William Wilberforce : The game is over.

  Duke of Clarence : What's wrong Wilberforce? If I hadn't brought the boy to London, he'd been worked to death in a sugarcane field by now. I saved his miserable life!

• Pitt the Younger : So, they want bloody noses and cracked crowns.

  William Wilberforce : Shakespeare. Henry the IV.

  Pitt the Younger : A play about England changing.

  William Wilberforce : As it will soon change.

  Pitt the Younger : Only if we change it. You don't believe you and I could change things?

• William Wilberforce : I know the affects of opium, Henry. This isn't the medication.

• William Wilberforce : Well, I'm definitely alone in my opinions about the treatment of animals.

  Barbara Spooner : No. I joined your Society for the Prevention of Cruelty.

  William Wilberforce : Well, I'm extreme. I have a pet fox, a pet rat and a crow that can't fly. I once had a pet hare, but, it died of kindness.

• Barbara Spooner : I remember when Mr. Pitt first became Prime Minister. The two of you were like meteorites shooting through our imaginations.

  William Wilberforce : Whose imaginations?

  Barbara Spooner : [laughs]  Girls my age.

  William Wilberforce : You are one of those who stopped taking sugar in your tea.

• William Wilberforce : Sometimes I get giddy.

• William Wilberforce : We had a year to collect enough evidence to convince Parliament of our case. The planters and the ship-owners began to spread rumors about us. They called us seditious - secretly working to bring down the government. Clarkson sat on a coach to Birmingham and overheard someone claim that I'd secretly married a slave woman.

• William Wilberforce : It's only painful to talk about because we haven't changed anything. But, unlike the slaves, I have opium for my pain.

• Maid : [enters the room]  Beggin' your pardon, sir. I thought everyone was in bed.

  [exits] 

  William Wilberforce : She brings the breakfast. What time is it?

  Barbara Spooner : Does it matter?

• Pitt the Younger : They say in the cafes that Clarkson is a French spy. And Equiano, they say he was born in Carolina and as an American; therefore, must be a revolutionary. Others say they've seen with their own eyes letters addressed to you - from Thomas Jefferson.

  William Wilberforce : All matters to do with abolition!

• John Newton : Oh, she feeds you well then, this wife of yours?

  William Wilberforce : She's given me an appetite.

  John Newton : An appetite to change things.

• James Stephen : You look fine. Fine.

  William Wilberforce : Oh, I look wet and feeble. You, however, look disgustingly like a lusty adventurer from a storybook.

• Pitt the Younger : Silence. Silence! You sound like a chorus of bloody tomcats. Now, let me introduce you to somebody who does it - properly.

  William Wilberforce : I would like to dedicate this song to my honorable friend, his Grace, the Duke of Clarence. It was written by my old preacher. He was Captain of a slave ship for 20 years. He repented his sins and then he wrote this song.

  [singing] 

  William Wilberforce : Amazing grace, How sweet the sound, That saved a wretch like me, I once was lost, but now I'm found, Was blind, but now I see.