Quotes by Alan Paton

“I have always found that actively lovingsaves one from a morbid preoccupationwith the shortcomings of society.”

“They were your friends?""Yes, they were my friends.""And they will leave you to suffer alone?""Now I see it.""And until this, were they friends you could trust?""I could trust them.""I see what you...”

“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.”

“There is a hard law. When an injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive. ”

“There's a hard law, mejuffrou, that when a deep injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive.”

“When I go up there, which is my intention, the Big Judge will say to me, Where are your wounds? and if I say I havent any, he will say, Was there nothing to fight for? I couldnt face that question.”

“ This world is full of trouble, umfundisi. Who knows it better? Yet you believe? Kumalo looked at him under the light of the lamp. I believe, he said, but I have learned that it is a secret. Pain ...”

“In the meantime the strike is over, with a remarkably low loss of life. All is quiet, they report, all is quiet.In the deserted harbour there is yet water that laps against the quays. In the dark a...”

“He pondered long over this, for might not another man, returning to another valley, have found none of these things? Why was it given to one man to have his pain transmuted into gladness? Why was i...”

“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 sta...”

“Have you a room that you could let?""Yes, I have a room that I could let, but I do not want to let it. I have only two rooms, and there are six of us already, and the boys and girls are growing up....”

“When a deep injury is done us, we never recover until we forgive.”

“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 w...”

“To give up the task of reforming society is to give up one's responsibility as a free man.”

“All roads lead to Johannesburg. If you are white or if you are black they lead to Johannesburg. If the crops fail, there is work in Johannesburg. If there are taxes to be paid, there is work in Joh...”

“Indeed, there is something in this valley, some spirit and some life, and much to talk about in the huts. Although nothing has come yet, something is here already.”

“Life has ... taught me not to expect success to be the inevitable result of my endeavors. She taught me to seek sustenance from the endeavor itself but to leave the result to God.”

“When men are ruled by fear they strive to prevent the very changes that will abate it.”