Alan Paton

“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.”

“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 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.”

“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.”

“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 it given to one man to have such an awareness of God?”

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

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

“God forgives us... who am I not to 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 haven’t any, he will say, “Was there nothing to fight for?” I couldn’t face that question.”

“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.”

“— 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 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. There is my wife, and you, my friend, and these people who welcomed me, and the child who is so eager to be with us here in Ndotsheni – so in my suffering I can believe.— 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.Kumalo looked at his friend with joy. You are a preacher, he said.”

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

“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 mean. You mean they were the kind of friends that a good man could choose, upright, hard-working, obeying the law?Tell me, were they such friends?And now they leave you alone?Did you not see it before?""I saw it.”

“But the one thing that has power completely is love, because when a man loves, he seeks no power, and therefore he has power.”

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

“What broke in a man when he could bring himself to kill another?”

“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.”

“You ask yourself not if this or that is expedient, but if it is right.”

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

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