Alan Paton Quotes
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When a deep injury is done us, we never recover until we forgive.
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I have always found that actively loving saves one from a morbid preoccupation with the shortcomings of society.
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I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they are turned to loving, they will find that we are turned to hating.
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For mines are for men, not for money. And money is not something to go mad about, and throw your hat into the air for. Money is for food and clothes and comfort, and a visit to the pictures. Money is to make happy the lives of children. Money is for security, and for dreams, and for hopes, and for purposes. Money is for buying the fruits of the earth, of the land where you were born.
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But the one thing that has power completely is love, because when a man loves, he seeks no power, and therefore he has power.
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In the deserted harbour there is yet water that laps against the quays. In the dark and silent forest, there is a leaf that falls. Behind the polished panelling the white ant eats away the wood. Nothing is ever quiet, except for fools.
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who knows what life is, for life is a secret.
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There is not much talking now. A silence falls upon them all. This is no time to talk of hedges and fields, or the beauties of any country. Sadness and fear and hate, how they well up in the heart and mind, whenever one opens pages of these messengers of doom. Cry for the broken tribe, for the law and the custom that is gone. Aye, and cry aloud for the man who is dead, for the woman and children bereaved. Cry, the beloved country, these things are not yet at an end. The sun pours down on the earth, on the lovely land that man cannot enjoy. He knows only the fear of his heart.
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It was not his habit to dwell on what could have been, but what could never be.
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Sorrow is better than fear. Fear is a journey,a terrible journey, but sorrow is at least an arrival. When the storm threatens, a man is afraid for his house. But when the house is destroyed, there is something to do. About a storm he can do nothing, but he can rebuild a house.
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Who knows for what we live, and struggle, and die? Wise men write many books, in words too hard to understand. But this, the purpose of our lives, the end of all our struggle, is beyond all human wisdom.
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There is only one way in which one can endure man's inhumanity to man and that is to try, in one's own life, to exemplify man's humanity to man.
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But when the dawn will come, of our emancipation, from the fear of bondage and the bondage of fear, why, that is a secret.
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I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they (the whites of South Africa) have turned to loving, they will find we (the blacks) are turned to hating.
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Sorrow is better than fear. Fear is a journey, a terrible journey. But, sorrow is at least an arriving.
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Something deep is touched here, something that is good and deep.
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What broke in a man when he could bring himself to kill another?
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But to punish and not to restore, that is the greatest of all offences.
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Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that's the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing. Nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him if he gives too much.
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But perhaps when you were too obedient, and did not do openly what others did, and were quiet in church and hard-working at school, then some unknown rebellion brewed in you, doing harm to you, though how I do not understand.
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All roads lead to Johannesburg.
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I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they are turned to loving, they will find we are turned to hating.
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To give up the task of reforming society is to give up one's responsibility as a free man.
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because life slips away, and because I need for the rest of my journey a star that will not play false to me, a compass that will not lie.