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Alan Paton Quotes

1903–1988 South Africa

Alan Stewart Paton (11 January 1903 – 12 April 1988) was a South African author and anti-apartheid activist.

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Random Alan Paton quote

29 quotes

A word from you is twice as severe because it comes from you.

Too Late the Phalarope (1953)

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.”

The light of the body is the eye, and when the eye is true then is the body full of light, but when the eye is evil, then is the body dark.

Too Late the Phalarope (1953)

Indeed, mother, you are always our helper.

Cry, the Beloved Country (1948)

For who can stop the heart from breaking?

Cry, the Beloved Country (1948)

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.

Cry, the Beloved Country (1948)

But to punish and not to restore, that is the greatest of all offences.

Too Late the Phalarope (1953)

It is not permissible for us to go on destroying the family life when we know that we are destroying it.

Cry, the Beloved Country (1948)

I do this not because I am courageous and honest, but because it is the only way to end the conflict of my deepest soul.

Cry, the Beloved Country (1948)

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

Cry, the Beloved Country (1948)

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, that one day when they are turned to loving, they will find we are turned to hating.

Cry, the Beloved Country (1948)

....for the black moods and the angers and the cold withdrawals that robbed her of the simple joys of her quiet and humble life.

Too Late the Phalarope (1953)

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.

Cry, the Beloved Country (1948)

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.

Cry, the Beloved Country (1948)

Happy the eyes that can close.

Cry, the Beloved Country (1948)

The humble man reached in his pocket for his sacred book, and began to read. It was this world alone that was certain.

Cry, the Beloved Country (1948)

We do not work for men. We work for the land and the people. We do not even work for money.

Cry, the Beloved Country (1948)

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.

Cry, the Beloved Country (1948)

...if man takes unto himself God's right to punish, then he must also take upon himself God's promise to restore.

Too Late the Phalarope (1953)

Why a man should have great strengths and great weakness I do not understand. For the first call him to honour, and the second to dishonour; and the first to fame and the second to destruction

Too Late the Phalarope (1953)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Alan Paton (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.