Alan Paton
When a deep injury is done us, we never recover until we forgive.Collection: Forgiveness
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.Collection: Wisdom
God forgives us... who am I not to forgive?
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.
But the one thing that has power completely is love, because when a man loves, he seeks no power, and therefore he has power.
To give up the task of reforming society is to give up one's responsibility as a free man.
You ask yourself not if this or that is expedient, but if it is right.
Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply... For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.
If you wrote a novel in South Africa which didn't concern the central issues, it wouldn't be worth publishing.
I envision someday a great, peaceful South Africa in which the world will take pride, a nation in which each of many different groups will be making its own creative contribution.
What broke in a man when he could bring himself to kill another?
It is not "forgive and forget" as if nothing wrong had ever happened, but "forgive and go forward," building on the mistakes of the past and the energy generated by reconciliation to create a new future.Collection: Moving On
The tragedy is not that things are broken. The tragedy is that things are not mended again.Collection: Broken
Let me not be afraid to defend the weak because of the anger of the strong, nor afraid to defend the poor because of the anger of the rich.Collection: Strong
The only way in which one can make endurable man's inhumanity to man, and man's destruction of his own environment, is to exemplify in your own lives man's humanity to man and man's reverence for the place in which he lives.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Pain
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 question. (Ah, But Your Land Is Beautiful)Collection: Beautiful
Ask yourself not if this or that is expedient, but if it is right.Collection: Life
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.Collection: Stars
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.Collection: Running
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 bear suffering. For he knew that there is no life without suffering.Collection: Christian
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.Collection: Journey
It is my belief that the only power which can resist the power of fear is the power of love.Collection: Love
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.Collection: Life
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. She taught me to seek sustenance from the endeavor itself, but to leave the result to God.Collection: Taught
I have always found that actively loving saves one from a morbid preoccupation with the shortcomings of society.Collection: Morbid
There are voices crying what must be done, a hundred, a thousand voices. But what do they help if one seeks for counsel, for one cries this, and one cries that, and another cries something that is neither this nor that.Collection: Voice
It is not permissible to add to one's possesions if these things can only be done at the cost of other men. Such development has only one true name, and that is exploitation.Collection: Men
It was not his habit to dwell on what could have been, but what could never be.Collection: Habit
But sorrow is better than fear. For fear impoverishes always, while sorrow may enrich.Collection: Sorrow
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.Collection: Country
Forgive us all, for we all have trespasses.Collection: Forgiving
One day in Johannesburg, and already the tribe was being rebuilt, the house and soul being restored.Collection: House
The Afrikaner has nowhere to go, and thats why he would rather destroy himself than capitulate.Collection: Nowhere To Go
Now God be thanked that the name of a hill is such music, that the name of a river can heal.Collection: Names
And money is not something to go mad about ... Money is for food and clothes and comfort, and a visit to the pictures. Money is to make happy the lives of children.Collection: Money
Nosecond Johannesburg isneededuponthe earth.One is enough.Collection: Earth
It is not permissible for us to go on destroying the family life when we know that we are destroying it.Collection: Goes On
For who can stop the heart from breaking?Collection: Heart
I am a weak and sinful man, but God put His hands on me, that is all.Collection: Men
And were your back as broad as heaven, and your purse full of gold, and did your compassion reach from here to hell itself, there is nothing you can do.Collection: Compassion
For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.Collection: Giving
Something deep is touched here, something that is good and deep.Collection: Touched
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 foolsCollection: Fall
But when the dawn will come, of our emancipation, from the fear of bondage and the bondage of fear, why, that is a secret.Collection: Secret
Sorrow is better than fear. Fear is a journey, a terrible journey. But, sorrow is at least an arriving.Collection: Journey
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.Collection: Country
Happy the eyes that can closeCollection: Eye
But to punish and not to restore, that is the greatest of all offences.Collection: Offence
There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills. These hills are grass-covered and rolling, and they are lovely beyond any singing of it.Collection: Running