Quotes by Alan Paton

“Life has not taught me to expect nothing but she has taught me not to expect success to be the inevitable result of my endeavors.”

“— 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. Pai...”

“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 haven’t any, he will say, “Was there nothing to fight for?” I couldn’t face that que...”

“- Mr. Berg, Are you an Afrikaner?- Yes-And are you proud of it?-I am not ashamed of it, but I am not proud of it, for in fact I had nothing to do with it.”

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

“Life has not taught me to expect nothing but she has taught me not to expect success to be the inevitable result of my endeavors.”

“We had two masters of the spoken word in South Africa, General Smuts and his lieutenant J. H. Hofmeyr, whose life I wrote. Smuts spoke in a high-pitched voice, not the kind of voice that one would ...”

“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.”

“The white man has broken the tribe. And it is my belief—and again I ask your pardon—that it cannot be mended again. But the house that is broken, and the man that falls apart when the house is brok...”

“I see only one hope for our country, and that is when white men and black men . . . desiring only the good of their country, come together to work for it. . . . I have one great fear in my heart, t...”

“This is no time to talk of hedges and fields, or the beauties of any country. . . . Cry for the broken tribe, for the law and the custom that is gone. Aye, and cry aloud for the man who is dead, fo...”

“The truth is that our civilization is not Christian; it is a tragic compound of great ideal and fearful practice, of high assurance and desperate anxiety, of loving charity and fearful clutching of...”

“And now for all the people of Africa, the beloved country. Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika, God save Africa. But he would not see that salvation. It lay afar off, because men were afraid of it. Because, to ...”

“The tragedy is not that things are broken. The tragedy is that things are not mended again.”

“...there is only one thing that has power completely, and this is love. Because when a man loves, he seeks no power, and therefore he has power.”

“Pain and suffering, they are a secret. Kindness and love, they are a secret. But I have learned that kindness and love can pay for pain and suffering.”

“I have never thought that a Christian would be free of suffering, umfundisi. For our Lord suffered. And I come to believe that he suffered, not to save us from suffering, but to teach us how to bea...”

“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 ...”

“The Judge does not make the law. It is people that make the law. Therefore if a law is unjust, and if the Judge judges according to the law, that is justice, even if it is not just.”

“The truth is, our civilization is not Christian; it is a tragic compound of great ideal and fearful practice, of loving charity and fearful clutching of possessions.”